Edition 


THE   POET   AT   THE 
BREAKFAST-TABLE 


THE  POET  AT  THE 
BREAKFAST-TABLE 


BY 


OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES 


BOSTON    AND    NEW  YORK 

HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 

(Cfee  fiitertfibe  pretf?  Cambd&0e 

1916 


Copyright,  1872  and  1800, 
BY  OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES. 

Copyright,  1900  and  1914. 
BY  OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES. 

All  rights  reserved. 


PREFACE. 

IN  this,  the  third  series  of  Breakfast- 
Table  conversations,  a  slight  dramatic  back 
ground  shows  off  a  few  talkers  and  writers, 
aided  by  certain  silent  supernumeraries.  The 
machinery  is  much  like  that  of  the  two  pre 
ceding  series.  Some  of  the  characters  must 
seem  like  old  acquaintances  to  those  who 
have  read  the  former  papers.  As  I  read 
these  over  for  the  first  time  for  a  number 
of  years,  I  notice  one  character  representing 
a  class  of  beings  who  have  greatly  multi 
plied  during  the  interval  which  separates 
the  earlier  and  later  Breakfast-Table  papers, 
—  I  mean  the  scientific  specialists.  The 
entomologist,  who  confines  himself  rigidly  to 
the  study  of  the  coleoptera,  is  intended  to 
typify  this  class.  The  subdivision  of  labor, 
which,  as  we  used  to  be  told,  required  four 
teen  different  workmen  to  make  a  single 
pin,  has  reached  all  branches  of  knowledge. 
We  find  new  terms  in  all  the  professions, 
implying  that  special  provinces  have  been 
marked  off,  each  having  its  own  school  of 

952996 


VI  PREFACE. 

students.  In  theology  we  have  many  curious 
subdivisions  ;  among  the  rest  eschatology, 
that  is  to  say,  the  geography,  geology,  etc., 
of  the  "  undiscovered  country ;  "  in  medi 
cine,  if  the  surgeon  who  deals  with  disloca 
tions  of  the  right  shoulder  declines  to  med 
dle  with  a  displacement  on  the  other  side, 
we  are  not  surprised,  but  ring  the  bell  of 
the  practitioner  who  devotes  himself  to  in 
juries  of  the  left  shoulder. 

On  the  other  hand,  we  have  had  or  have 
the  encyclopaedic  intelligences  like  Cuvier, 
Buckle,  and  more  emphatically  Herbert 
Spencer,  who  take  all  knowledge,  or  large 
fields  of  it,  to  be  their  province.  The  au 
thor  of  u  Thoughts  on  the  Universe  "  has 
something  in  common  with  these,  but  he  ap 
pears  also  to  have  a  good  deal  about  him  of 
what  we  call  the  humorist ;  that  is,  an  indi 
vidual  with  a  somewhat  heterogeneous  per 
sonality,  in  which  various  distinctly  human 
elements  are  mixed  together,  so  as  to  form 
a  kind  of  coherent  and  sometimes  pleasing 
whole,  which  is  to  a  symmetrical  character 
as  a  breccia  is  to  a  mosaic. 

As  for  the  young  astronomer,  his  rhyth 
mical  discourse  may  be  taken  as  expressing 
the  reaction  of  what  some  would  call  u  the 
natural  man  "  against  the  unnatural  beliefs 


PREFACE.  vii 

which  he  found  in  that  lower  world  to  which 
he  descended  by  day  from  his  midnight 
home  in  the  firmament. 

I  have  endeavored  to  give  fair  play  to  the 
protest  of  gentle  and  reverential  conserva 
tism  in  the  letter  of  the  Lady,  which  was  not 
copied  from,  but  suggested  by,  one  which  I 
received  long  ago  from  a  lady  bearing  an 
honored  name,  and  which  I  read  thought 
fully  and  with  profound  respect. 

OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES. 

December,  1882. 


THE  POET  AT  THE  BREAK- 
.  FAST-TABLE. 

I. 

HPHE  idea  of  a  man's  "  interviewing  "  him- 
-*-  self  is  rather  odd,  to  be  sure.  But  then 
that  is  what  we  are  all  of  us  doing  every 
day.  I  talk  half  the  time  to  find  out  my 
own  thoughts,  as  a  school-boy  turns  his 
pockets  inside  out  to  see  what  is  in  them. 
One  brings  to  light  all  sorts  of  personal 
property  he  had  forgotten  in  his  inventory. 

-You  don't  know  what  your  thoughts 
are  going  to  be  beforehand  ?  said  the  "  Mem 
ber  of  the  Haouse,"  as  he  calls  himself. 

—  Why,  of  course  I  don't.  Bless  your 
honest  legislative  soul,  I  suppose  I  have  as 
many  bound  volumes  of  notions  of  one  kind 
and  another  in  my  head  as  you  have  in  your 
Representatives'  library  up  there  at  the 
State  House.  I  have  to  tumble  them  over 
and  over,  and  open  them  in  a  hundred  places, 
and  sometimes  cut  the  leaves  here  and  there, 
to  find  what  I  think  about  this  and  that. 


2  THE  POET  AT 

And  a  good  many  people  who  flatter  them 
selves  they  are  talking  wisdom  to  me,  are 
only,  helping  me  to  get  at  the  shelf  and  the 
book  and  the  page  where  I  shall  find  my 
own  opinion  about  the  matter  in  question. 

—  The    Member's    eyes    began   to    look 
heavy. 

-  It 's  a  very  queer  place,  that  receptacle 
a  man  fetches  his  talk  out  of.  The  library 
comparison  does  n't  exactly  hit  it.  You 
stow  away  some  idea  and  don't  want  it,  say 
for  ten  years.  When  it  turns  up  at  last  it 
has  got  so  jammed  and  crushed  out  of  shape 
by  the  other  ideas  packed  with  it,  that  it  is 
no  more  like  what  it  was  than  a  raisin  is 
like  a  grape  on  the  vine,  or  a  fig  from  a 
drum  like  one  hanging  011  the  tree.  Then, 
again,  some  kinds  of  thoughts  breed  in  the 
dark  of  one's  mind  like  the  blind  fishes  in 
the  Mammoth  Cave.  We  can't  see  them 
and  they  can't  see  us ;  but  sooner  or  later 
the  daylight  gets  in  and  we  find  that  some 
cold,  fishy  little  negative  has  been  spawning 
all  over  our  beliefs,  and  the  brood  of  blind 
questions  it  has  given  birth  to  are  burrow 
ing  round  and  under  and  butting  their  blunt 
noses  against  the  pillars  of  faith  we  thought 
the  whole  world  might  lean  on.  And  then, 
again,  some  of  our  old  beliefs  are  dying  out 


TUE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  3 

every  year,  and  others  feed  on  them  and 
grow  fat,  or  get  poisoned  as  the  case  may 
be.  And  so,  you  see,  you  can't  tell  what 
the  thoughts  are  that  you  have  got  salted 
down,  as  one  may  say,  till  you  run  a  streak 
of  talk  through  them,  as  the  market  people 
run  a  butter-scoop  through  a  firkin. 

Don't  talk,  thinking  you  are  going  to  find 
out  your  neighbor,  for  you  won't  do  it,  but 
talk  to  find  out  yourself.  There  is  more  of 
you  —  and  less  of  you,  in  spots,  very  likely 
—  than  you  know. 

—  The  Member  gave  a  slight  but  un 
equivocal  start  just  here.  It  does  seem  as 
if  perpetual  somnolence  was  the  price  of  lis 
tening  to  other  people's  wisdom.  This  was 
one  of  those  transient  nightmares  that  one 
may  have  in  a  doze  of  twenty  seconds.  He 
thought  a  certain  imaginary  Committee  of 
Safety  of  a  certain  imaginary  Legislature 
was  proceeding  to  burn  down  his  haystack, 
in  accordance  with  an  Act,  entitled  an  Act 
to  make  the  Poor  Richer  by  making  the 
Eich  Poorer.  And  the  chairman  of  the 
committee  was  instituting  a  forcible  ex 
change  of  hats  with  him,  to  his  manifest 
disadvantage,  for  he  had  just  bought  him 
a  new  beaver.  He  told  this  dream  after 
wards  to  one  of  the  boarders. 


4  THE  POET  AT 

There  was  nothing  very  surprising,  there 
fore,  in  his  asking  a  question  not  very 
closely  related  to  what  had  gone  before. 

—  Do  you  think  they  mean  business  ? 

—  I  beg  your  pardon,  but  it  would  be 
of  material  assistance  to   me  in  answering 
your  question  if  I  knew  who  "  they  "  might 
happen  to  be. 

—  Why,  those  chaps  that  are  setting 
folks  on  to  burn  us  all  up  in  our  beds.  Po 
litical  firebugs  we  call  'em  up  our  way. 
Want  to  substitoot  the  match-box  for  the 
ballot-box.  Scare  all  our  old  women  half 
to  death. 

—  Oh  —  ah  —  yes  —  to  be  sure.     I  don't 
believe   they  say  what   the   papers   put   in 
their  mouths  any  more  than  that  a  friend 
of  mine  wrote  the  letter  about  Worcester's 
and  Webster's  Dictionaries,  that  he  had  to 
disown   the   other   day.      These   newspaper 
fellows  are  half  asleep  when  they  make  up 
their  reports  at  two  or  three  o'clock  in  the 
morning,  and  fill  out  the   speeches  to   suit 
themselves.      I    do    remember  some    things 
that  sounded  pretty  bad,  —  about  as  bad  as 
uitro  -  glycerine,    for    that    matter.      But    I 
don't  believe  they  ever  said  'em,  when  they 
spoke  their   pieces,  or   if   they  said  'em   I 
know   they  did  n't    mean    'em.     Something 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  5 

like  this,  was  n't  it  ?  If  the  majority  did  n't 
do  something  the  minority  wanted  'em  to, 
then  the  people  were  to  burn  up  our  cities, 
and  knock  us  down  and  jump  on  our  stom 
achs.  That  was  about  the  kind  of  talk,  as 
the  papers  had  it ;  I  don't  wonder  it  scared 
the  old  women. 

—  The  Member  was  wide  awake  by  this 
time. 

—  I  don't  seem  to  remember  of  them  par- 
tickler  phrases,  he  said. 

—  Dear  me,  no  ;  only  levelling  everything 
smack,  and  trampling  us  under  foot,  as  the 
reporters  made  it  out.     That  means  FIRE, 
I    take    it,    and    knocking   you    down   and 
stamping  on  you,   whichever  side  of   your 
person  happens  to  be  uppermost.     Sounded 
like  a  threat ;  meant,  of  course,  for  a  warn 
ing.     But  I  don't  believe  it  was  in  the  piece 
as   they   spoke   it,  —  could  n't   have   been. 
Then,  again,   Paris  was  n't  to  blame,  —  as 
much  as  to  say  —  so  the  old  women  thought 
—  that  New  York  or  Boston  wouldn't  be 
to   blame  if   it  did  the  same  thing.     I  've 
heard  of  political  gatherings  where  they  bar 
becued  an  ox,  but  I  can't  think  there  's  a 
party  in  this  country  that  wants  to  barbecue 
a  city.     But  it  is  n't  quite  fair  to  frighten 
the  old  women.     I  don't  doubt  there  are  a 


6  THE  POET  AT 

great  many  people  wiser  than  I  arn  that 
would  n't  be  hurt  by  a  hint  I  am  going  to 
give  them.  It 's  no  matter  what  you  say 
when  you  talk  to  yourself,  but  when  you 
talk  to  other  people,  your  business  is  to 
use  words  with  reference  to  the  way  in 
which  those  other  people  are  like  to  under 
stand  them.  These  pretended  inflammatory 
speeches,  so  reported  as  to  seem  full  of  com 
bustibles,  even  if  they  were  as  threatening 
as  they  have  been  represented,  would  do  no 
harm  if  read  or  declaimed  in  a  man's  study 
to  his  books,  or  by  the  sea-shore  to  the 
waves.  But  they  are  not  so  wholesome 
moral  entertainment  for  the  dangerous 
classes.  Boys  must  not  touch  off  their 
squibs  and  crackers  too  near  the  powder- 
magazine.  This  kind  of  speech  doesn't 
help  on  the  millennium  much. 

—  It  ain't  jest  the  thing  to  grease  your 
ex  with  ile  o'  vitrul,  said  the  Member. 

—  No,  the  wheel  of  progress  will  soon 
stick  fast  if  you  do.  You  can't  keep  a  dead 
level  long,  if  you  burn  everything  down 
flat  to  make  it.  Why,  bless  your  soul,  if 
all  the  cities  of  the  world  were  reduced  to 
ashes,  you  'd  have  a  new  set  of  millionnaires 
in  a  couple  of  years  or  so,  out  of  the  trade 
in  potash.  In  the  mean  time,  what  is  the 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  1 

use  of  setting  the  man  with  the  silver  watch 
against  the  man  with  the  gold  watch,  and 
the  man  without  any  watch  against  them 
both  ? 

—  You  can't  go  agin  human  natur',  said 
the  Member. 

—  You  speak  truly.     Here  we  are  travel 
ling  through  the   desert   together  like    the 
children    of    Israel.       Some    pick   up    more 
manna  and  catch  more  quails  than  others, 
and  ought  to  help  their  hungry  neighbors 
more  than  they  do  ;  that  will  always  be  so 
until  we  come  back  to  primitive  Christian 
ity,  the  road  to  which  does  not  seem  to  be 
via  Paris,  just  now  ;  but  we  don't  want  the 
incendiary's  pillar  of  a  cloud  by  day  and  a 
pillar  of    fire    by  night  to  lead  us   in  the 
march  to  civilization,  and  we  don't  want  a 
Moses  who  will  smite  the  rock,  not  to  bring 
out  water  for  our  thirst,  but  petroleum  to 
burn  us  all  up  with. 

—  It  is  n't  quite  fair  to  run  an  opposition 
to  the  other  funny  speaker,  Rev.  Petroleum 
V.  What  's-his-name,  —  spoke  up  an  anony 
mous  boarder. 

—  You  may  have  been  thinking,  perhaps, 
that  it  was  I,  —  I,  the  Poet,  who  was  the 
chief   talker   in   the  one-sided   dialogue   to 


8  THE  POET  AT 

which  you  have  been  listening.  If  so,  you 
were  mistaken.  It  was  the  old  man  in  the 
spectacles  with  large  round  glasses  and  the 
iron-gray  hair.  He  does  a  good  deal  of 
the  talking  at  our  table,  and,  to  tell  the 
truth,  I  rather  like  to  hear  him.  He  stirs 
me  up,  and  finds  me  occupation  in  various 
ways,  and  especially,  because  he  has  good 
solid  prejudices,  that  one  can  rub  against, 
and  so  get  up  and  let  off  a  superficial  intel 
lectual  irritation,  just  as  the  cattle  rub  their 
backs  against  a  rail  (you  remember  Syd 
ney  Smith's  contrivance  in  his  pasture)  or 
their  sides  against  an  apple-tree  (I  don't 
know  why  they  take  to  these  so  particularly, 
but  you  will  often  find  the  trunk  of  an  ap 
ple-tree  as  brown  and  smooth  as  an  old  sad 
dle  at  the  height  of  a  cow's  ribs).  I  think 
they  begin  rubbing  in  cold  blood,  and  then, 
you  know,  Vappetit  vlent  en  mangeant,  the 
more  they  rub  the  more  they  want  to.  That 
is  the  way  to  use  your  friend's  prejudices. 
This  is  a  sturdy-looking  personage  of  a  good 
deal  more  than  middle  age,  his  face  marked 
with  strong  manly  furrows,  records  of  hard 
thinking  and  square  stand-up  fights  with 
life  and  all  its  devils.  There  is  a  slight 
touch  of  satire  in  his  discourse  now  and 
then,  and  an  odd  way  of  answering  one  that 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

makes  it  hard  to  guess  how  much  more  or 
less  he  means  than  he  seems  to  say.  But 
he  is  honest,  and  always  has  a  twinkle  in 
his  eye  to  put  you  on  your  guard  when  he 
does  not  mean  to  be  taken  quite  literally. 
I  think  old  Ben  Franklin  had  just  that  look. 
I  know  his  great-grandson  (in  pace  /)  had 
it,  and  I  don't  doubt  he  took  it  in  the 
straight  line  of  descent,  as  he  did  his  grand 
intellect. 

The  Member  of  the  Haouse  evidently 
comes  from  one  of  the  lesser  inland  centres 
of  civilization,  where  the  flora  is  rich  in 
checkerberries  and  similar  bounties  of  na 
ture,  and  the  fauna  lively  with  squirrels, 
woodchucks,  and  the  like ;  where  the  lead 
ing  sportsmen  snare  patridges,  as  they  are 
called,  and  "  hunt  "  foxes  with  guns ;  where 
rabbits  are  entrapped  in  "  figgery  fours," 
and  trout  captured  with  the  unpretentious 
earth-worm,  instead  of  the  gorgeous  fly ; 
where  they  get  prizes  for  butter  and  cheese, 
and  rag-carpets  executed  by  ladies  more 
than  seventy  years  of  age ;  where  they  wear 
dress-coats  before  dinner,  and  cock  their 
hats  on  one  side  when  they  feel  conspicuous 
and  distinguished  ;  where  the}7  say  Sir  to 
you  in  their  common  talk,  and  have  other 
Arcadian  and  bucolic  ways  which  are  highly 


10  THE  POET  AT 

unobjectionable,  but  are  not  so  much  ad 
mired  in  cities,  where  the  people  are  said  to 
be  not  half  so  virtuous. 

There  is  with  us  a  boy  of  modest  dimen 
sions,  not  otherwise  especially  entitled  to 
the  epithet,  who  ought  to  be  six  or  seven 
years  old,  to  judge  by  the  gap  left  by  his 
front  milk  teeth,  these  having  resigned  in 
favor  of  their  successors,  who  have  not  yet 
presented  their  credentials.  He  is  rather  old 
for  an  enfant  terrible,  and  quite  too  young 
to  have  grown  into  the  bashf  ulness  of  adoles 
cence  ;  but  he  has  some  of  the  qualities  of 
both  these  engaging  periods  of  development. 
The  Member  of  the  Haouse  calls  him  uBub," 
invariably,  which  term  I  take  to  be  an  ab 
breviation  of  "  Beelzebub,"  as  "  'bus  "  is  the 
short  form  of  "  omnibus."  Many  eminently 
genteel  persons,  whose  manners  make  them 
at  home  anywhere,  being  evidently  unaware 
of  the  true  derivation  of  this  word,  are  in 
the  habit  of  addressing  all  unknown  children 
by  one  of  the  two  terms,  u  bub  "  and  "  sis," 
which  they  consider  endears  them  greatly 
to  the  young  people,  and  recommends  them 
to  the  acquaintance  of  their  honored  parents, 
if  these  happen  to  accompany  them.  The 
other  boarders  commonly  call  our  diminu 
tive  companion  That  Boy.  He  is  a  sort  of 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  11 

expletive  at  the  table,  serving  to  stop  gaps, 
taking  the  same  place  a  washer  does  that 
makes  a  loose  screw  fit,  and  contriving  to 
get  driven  in  like  a  wedge  between  any  two 
chairs  where  there  is  a  crevice.  I  shall  not 
call  that  boy  by  the  monosyllable  referred 
to,  because,  though  he  has  many  impish 
traits  at  present,  he  may  become  civilized 
and  humanized  by  being  in  good  company. 
Besides,  it  is  a  term  which  I  understand  is 
considered  vulgar  by  the  nobility  and  gentry 
of  the  Mother  Country,  and  it  is  not  to  be 
found  in  Mr.  Worcester's  Dictionary,  on 
which,  as  is  well  known,  the  literary  men  of 
this  metropolis  are  by  special  statute  allowed 
to  be  sworn  in  place  of  the  Bible.  I  know 
one,  certainly,  who  never  takes  his  oath  on 
any  other  dictionary,  any  advertising  fiction 
to  the  contrary,  notwithstanding. 

I  wanted  to  write  out  my  account  of  some 
of  the  other  boarders,  but  a  domestic  occur 
rence  —  a  somewhat  prolonged  visit  from 
the  landlady,  who  is  rather  too  anxious  that 
I  should  be  comfortable  —  broke  in  upon 
the  continuity  of  my  thoughts,  and  occa 
sioned  —  in  short,  I  gave  up  writing  for 
that  day. 

—  I  wonder  if  anything  like  this  ever 
happened. 


12  THE  POET  AT 

Author  writing,  — 

"  To  be,  or  not  to  be  :  that  is  the  question :  — • 

Whether  't  is  nobl  —  " 

— "  William,  shall  we  have  pudding  to 
day,  or  flapjacks  ?  " 

—  "  Flapjacks,  an'  it  please  thee,  Anne, 
or  a  pudding,  for  that  matter ;  or  what  thou 
wilt,  good  woman,  so  thou  come  not  betwixt 
me  and  my  thought." 

—  Exit  Mistress  Anne,  with  strongly  ac 
cented  closing  of  the  door  and  murmurs  to 
the  effect :  "  Ay,  marry,  't  is  well  for  thee  to 
talk  as  if  thou  hadst  no  stomach  to  fill.     We 
poor  wives  must  swink  for  our  masters,  while 
they  sit  in  their  arm-chairs  growing  as  great 
in  the   girth    through   laziness  as  that   ill- 
mannered  old  fat  man  William  hath  writ  of 
in  his  books  of  players'  stuff.     One  had  as 
well   meddle    with    a  porkpen,  which    hath 
thorns    all   over   him,   as   try  to   deal  with 
William  when   his  eyes  be  rolling    in  that 
mad  way." 

William  —  writing  once  more  —  after  an 
exclamation  in  strong  English  of  the  older 
pattern,  — 

"  Whether  't  is  nobler  —  nobler  —  nobler  — 
To  do  what  ?     O  these  women !    these  wo 
men  !     to     have     puddings     or    flapjacks  \ 
Oh!  — 


THE  BEE AKF AST-TABLE.  13 

Whether  Y  is  nobler  —  in  the  mind  —  to  suffer 
The  slings  —  and  arrows  —  of — 
Oh !  Oh !  these  women !  I  will  e'en  step 
over  to  the  parson's  and  have  a  cup  of  sack 
with  His  Reverence,  for  methinks  Master 
Hamlet  hath  forgot  that  which  was  just  now 
on  his  lips  to  speak." 

So  I  shall  have  to  put  off  making  my 
friends  acquainted  with  the  other  boarders, 
some  of  whom  seem  to  me  worth  studying 
and  describing.  I  have  something  else  of  a 
graver  character  for  my  readers.  I  am  talk 
ing,  you  know,  as  a  poet ;  I  do  not  say  I  de 
serve  the  name,  but  I  have  taken  it,  and  if 
you  consider  me  at  all  it  must  be  in  that 
aspect.  You  will,  therefore,  perhaps,  be 
willing  to  run  your  eyes  over  a  few  pages 
which  I  read,  of  course  by  request,  to  a 
select  party  of  the  boarders. 


THE  GAMBREL-ROOFED  HOUSE  AND  ITS 
OUTLOOK. 

A    PANORAMA,    WITH    SIDE-SHOWS. 

My  birthplace,  the  home  of  my  childhood 
and  earlier  and  later  boyhood,  has  within  a 
few  months  passed  out  of  the  ownership  of 


14  THE  POET  AT 

my  family  into  the  hands  of  that  venerable 
Alma  Mater  who  seems  to  have  renewed  her 
youth,  and  has  certainly  repainted  her  dormi 
tories.  In  truth,  when  I  last  revisited  that 
familiar  scene  and  looked  upon  the  flam- 
mantia  motaiia  of  the  old  halls,  "  Massachu 
setts  "  with  the  dummy  clock-dial,  "  Har 
vard  "  with  the  garrulous  belfry,  little 
"  Holden "  with  the  sculptured  unpunish 
able  cherub  over  its  portal,  and  the  rest  of 
my  early  brick-and-mortar  acquaintances,  I 
could  not  help  saying  to  myself  that  I  had 
lived  to  see  the  peaceable  establishment  of 
the  Red  Republic  of  Letters. 

Many  of  the  things  I  shall  put  down  I 
have  no  doubt  told  before  in  a  fragmentary 
way,  how  many  I  cannot  be  quite  sure,  as  I 
do  not  very  often  read  my  own  prose  works. 
But  when  a  man  dies  a  great  deal  is  said  of 
him  which  has  often  been  said  in  other 
forms,  and  now  this  dear  old  house  is  dead 
to  me  in  one  sense,  and  I  want  to  gather  up 
my  recollections  and  wind  a  string  of  narra 
tive  round  them,  tying  them  up  like  a  nose 
gay  for  the  last  tribute  :  the  same  blossoms 
in  it  I  have  often  laid  on  its  threshold  while 
it  was  still  living  for  me. 

We  Americans  are  all  cuckoos,  —  we 
make  our  homes  in  the  nests  of  other  birds. 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  15 

I  have  read  somewhere  that  the  lineal  de 
scendants  of  the  man  who  carted  off  the 
body  of  William  Eufus,  with  Walter  Tyr- 
rel's  arrow  sticking  in  it,  have  driven  a 
cart  (not  absolutely  the  same  one,  I  sup 
pose)  in  the  New  Forest,  from  that  day  to 
this.  I  don't  quite  understand  Mr.  Riiskin's 
saying  (if  he  said  it)  that  he  could  n't  get 
along  in  a  country  where  there  were  no  cas 
tles,  but  I  do  think  we  lose  a  great  deal  in 
living  where  there  are  so  few  permanent 
homes.  You  will  see  how  much  I  parted 
with  which  was  not  reckoned  in  the  price 
paid  for  the  old  homestead. 

I  shall  say  many  things  which  an  unchar 
itable  reader  might  find  fault  with  as  per 
sonal.  I  should  not  dare  to  call  myself  a 
poet  if  I  did  not ;  for  if  there  is  anything 
that  gives  one  a  title  to  that  name,  it  is  that 
his  inner  nature  is  naked  and  is  not  ashamed. 
But  there  are  many  such  things  I  shall  put 
in  words,  not  because  they  are  personal,  but 
because  they  are  human,  and  are  born  of 
just  such  experiences  as  those  who  hear  or 
read  what  I  say  are  like  to  have  had  in 
greater  or  less  measure.  I  find  myself  so 
much  like  other  people  that  I  often  wonder 
at  the  coincidence.  It  was  only  the  other 
day  that  I  sent  out  a  copy  of  verses  about 


16  THE  POET  AT 

my  great-grandmother's  picture,  and  I  was 
surprised  to  find  how  many  other  people 
had  portraits  of  their  great-grandmothers  or 
other  progenitors,  about  which  they  felt  as  I 
did  about  mine,  and  for  whom  I  had  spoken, 
thinking  I  was  speaking  for  myself  only. 
And  so  I  am  not  afraid  to  talk  very  freely 
with  you,  my  precious  reader  or  listener. 
You  too,  Beloved,  were  born  somewhere  and 
remember  your  birthplace  or  your  early 
home  ;  for  you  some  house  is  haunted  by 
recollections ;  to  some  roof  you  have  bid 
farewell.  Your  hand  is  upon  mine,  then, 
as  I  guide  my  pen.  Your  heart  frames  the 
responses  to  the  litany  of  my  remembrance. 
For  myself  it  is  a  tribute  of  affection  I  am 
rendering,  and  I  should  put  it  on  record  for 
my  own  satisfaction,  were  there  none  to 
read  or  to  listen. 

I  hope  you  will  not  say  that  I  have  built 
a  pillared  portico  of  introduction  to  a  hum 
ble  structure  of  narrative.  For  when  you 
look  at  the  old  gambrel-roofed  house,  you 
will  see  an  unpretending  mansion,  such  as 
very  possibly  you  were  born  in  yourself,  or 
at  any  rate  such  a  place  of  residence  as  your 
minister  or  some  of  your  well-to-do  country 
cousins  find  good  enough,  but  not  at  all  too 
grand  for  them.  We  have  stately  old  Co- 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  17 

lonial  palaces  in  our  ancient  village,  now  a 
city,  and  a  thriving  one,  —  square-fronted 
edifices  that  stand  back  from  the  vulgar  high 
way,  with  folded  arms,  as  it  were  ;  social 
fortresses  of  the  time  when  the  twilight  lus 
tre  of  the  throne  reached  as  far  as  our  half- 
cleared  settlement,  with  a  glacis  before  them 
in  the  shape  of  a  long  broad  gravel-walk, 
so  that  in  King  George's  time  they  looked 
as  formidably  to  any  but  the  silk-stocking 
gentry  as  Gibraltar  or  Ehrenbreitstein  to  a 
visitor  without  the  password.  We  forget 
all  this  in  the  kindly  welcome  they  give  us 
to-day ;  for  some  of  them  are  still  standing 
and  doubly  famous,  as  we  all  know.  But 
the  gambrel-roofed  house,  though  stately 
enough  for  college  dignitaries  and  scholarly 
clergymen,  was  not  one  of  those  old  Tory, 
Episcopal-church-goer's  strongholds.  One 
of  its  doors  opens  directly  upon  the  green, 
always  called  the  Common  ;  the  other,  fa 
cing  the  south,  a  few  steps  from  it,  over  a 
paved  foot-walk,  on  the  other  side  of  which 
is  the  miniature  front  yard,  bordered  with 
lilacs  and  syringas.  The  honest  mansion 
makes  no  pretensions.  Accessible,  compan 
ionable,  holding  its  hand  out  to  all,  comfort 
able,  respectable,  and  even  in  its  way  digni 
fied,  but  not  imposing,  not  a  house  for  his 


18  THE  POET  AT 

Majesty's  Counsellor,  or  the  Right  Rever 
end  successor  of  Him  who  had  not  where 
to  lay  his  head,  for  something  like  a  hun 
dred  and  fifty  years  it  has  stood  in  its  lot, 
and  seen  the  generations  of  men  come  and  go 
like  the  leaves  of  the  forest.  I  passed  some 
pleasant  hours,  a  few  years  since,  in  the 
Registry  of  Deeds  and  the  Town  Records, 
looking  up  the  history  of  the  old  house. 
How  those  dear  friends  of  mine,  the  anti 
quarians,  for  whose  grave  councils  I  com 
pose  my  features  on  the  too  rare  Thursdays 
when  I  am  at  liberty  to  meet  them,  in  whose 
human  herbarium  the  leaves  and  blossoms 
of  past  generations  are  so  carefully  spread 
out  and  pressed  and  laid  away,  would  listen 
to  an  expansion  of  the  following  brief  details 
into  an  Historical  Memoir  ! 

The  estate  was  the  third  lot  of  the  eighth 
"  Squadron  "  (whatever  that  might  be), 
and  in  the  year  1707  was  allotted  in  the  dis 
tribution  of  undivided  lands  to  "  Mr.  ffox," 
the  Reverend  Jabez  Fox,  of  Woburn,  it  may 
be  supposed,  as  it  passed  from  his  heirs  to 
the  first  Jonathan  Hastings  ;  from  him  to 
his  son,  the  long-remembered  College  Stew 
ard  ;  from  him  in  the  year  1792  to  the 
Reverend  Eliphalet  Pearson,  Professor  of 
Hebrew  and  other  Oriental  languages  in 


THE  BREAKFAST -TABLE.  19 

Harvard  College,  whose  large  personality 
swam  into  my  ken  when  I  was  looking  for 
ward  to  my  teens  ;  from  him  to  the  progen 
itors  of  my  unborn  self. 

I  wonder  if  there  are  any  such  beings 
nowadays  as  the  great  Eliphalet,  with  his 
large  features  and  conversational  basso  pro- 
fundo,  seemed  to  me.  His  very  name  had 
something  elephantine  about  it,  and  it 
seemed  to  me  that  the  house  shook  from 
cellar  to  garret  at  his  footfall.  Some  have 
pretended  that  he  had  Olympian  aspirations, 
and  wanted  to  sit  in  the  seat  of  Jove  and 
bear  the  academic  thunderbolt  and  the  aegis 
inscribed  Christo  et  Ecdesice..  It  is  a  com 
mon  weakness  enough  to  wish  to  find  one's 
self  in  an  empty  saddle ;  Cotton  Mather 
was  miserable  all  his  days,  I  am  afraid, 
after  that  entry  in  his  Diary  :  "  This  Day 
Dr.  Sewall  was  chosen  President,  for  his 
Piety." 

There  is  no  doubt  that  the  men  of  the 
older  generation  look  bigger  and  more  for 
midable  to  the  boys  whose  eyes  are  turned 
up  at  their  venerable  countenances  than  thf 
race  which  succeeds  them,  to  the  same  boys 
grown  older.  Everything  is  twice  as  large, 
measured  on  a  three-year-old's  three-foot 
scale  as  on  a  thirty -year-old's  six-foot  scale  ; 


20  THE  POET  AT 

but  age  magnifies  and  aggravates  persons 
out  of  due  proportion.  Old  people  are  a 
kind  of  monsters  to  little  folks ;  mild  mani 
festations  of  the  terrible,  it  may  be,  but 
still,  with  their  white  locks  and  ridged  and 
grooved  features,  which  those  horrid  little 
eyes  exhaust  of  their  details,  like  so  many 
microscopes  not  exactly  what  human  beings 
ought  to  be.  The  middle-aged  and  young 
men  have  left  comparatively  faint  impres 
sions  in  my  memory,  but  how  grandly  the 
procession  of  the  old  clergymen  who  filled 
our  pulpit  from  time  to  time,  and  passed  the 
day  under  our  roof,  marches  before  my  closed 
eyes !  At  their  head  the  most  venerable 
David  Osgood,  the  majestic  minister  of  Med- 
ford,  with  massive  front  and  shaggy  over 
shadowing  eyebrows  ;  following  in  the  train, 
mild-eyed  John  Foster  of  Brighton,  with  the 
lambent  aurora  of  a  smile  about  his  pleasant 
mouth,  which  not  even  the  "  Sabbath  "  could 
subdue  to  the  true  Levitical  aspect ;  and 
bulky  Charles  Stearns  of  Lincoln,  author  of 
"  The  Ladies'  Philosophy  of  Love.  A  Poem. 
1797."  (how  I  stared  at  him  !  he  was  the 
first  living  person  ever  pointed  out  to  me  as 
a  poet);  and  Thaddeus  Mason  Harris  of 
Dorchester  (the  same  who,  a  poor  youth, 
trudging  along,  staff  in  hand,  being  then  in 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  21 

a  stress  of  sore  need,  found  all  at  once  that 
somewhat  was  adhering  to  the  end  of  his 
stick,  which  somewhat  proved  to  be  a  gold 
ring  of  price,  bearing  the  words,  "  God 
speed  thee,  Friend  !  "),  already  in  decadence 
as  I  remember  him,  with  head  slanting  for 
ward  and  downward  as  if  looking  for  a 
place  to  rest  in  after  his  learned  labors ; 
and  that  other  Thaddeus,  the  old  man  of 
West  Cambridge,  who  outwatched  the  rest 
so  long  after  they  had  gone  to  sleep  in  their 
own  churchyards,  that  it  almost  seemed  as 
if  he  meant  to  sit  up  until  the  morning  of 
the  resurrection  ;  and  bringing  up  the  rear, 
attenuated  but  vivacious  little  Jonathan  Ho 
mer  of  Newton,  who  was,  to  look  upon,  a 
kind  of  expurgated,  reduced  and  American 
ized  copy  of  Voltaire,  but  very  unlike  him 
in  wickedness  or  wit.  The  good-humored 
junior  member  of  our  family  always  loved 
to  make  him  happy  by  setting  him  chirrup 
ing  about  Miles  Coverdale's  Version,  and 
the  Bishop's  Bible,  and  how  he  wrote  to  his 
friend  Sir  Isaac  (Coffin)  about  something 
or  other,  and  how  Sir  Isaac  wrote  back  that 
he  was  very  much  pleased  with  the  contents 
of  his  letter,  and  so  on  about  Sir  Isaac, 
ad  libitum,  —  for  the  admiral  was  his  old 
friend,  and  he  was  proud  of  him.  The 


22  THE  POET  AT 

kindly  little  old  gentleman  was  a  collector 
of  Bibles,  and  made  himself  believe  he 
thought  he  should  publish  a  learned  Com 
mentary  some  day  or  other  ;  but  his  friends 
looked  for  it  only  in  the  Greek  Calends,  — 
say  on  the  31st  of  April,  when  that  should 
come  round,  if  you  would  modernize  the 
phrase.  I  recall  also  one  or  two  exceptional 
and  infrequent  visitors  with  perfect  distinct 
ness  :  cheerful  Elijah  Kellogg,  a  lively  mis 
sionary  from  the  region  of  the  Quoddy  In 
dians,  with  much  hopeful  talk  about  Sock 
Bason  and  his  tribe  ;  also  poor  old  Poor- 
house-Parson  Isaac  Smith,  his  head  going 
like  a  China  mandarin,  as  he  discussed  the 
possibilities  of  the  escape  of  that  distin 
guished  captive  whom  he  spoke  of  under 
the  name,  if  I  can  reproduce  phonetically 
its  vibrating  nasalities  of  "  General  Mmbon- 
gaparty,"  —  a  name  suggestive  to  my  young 
imagination  of  a  dangerous,  loose-jointed 
skeleton,  threatening  us  all  like  the  armed 
figure  of  Death  in  my  little  New  England 
Primer. 

I  have  mentioned  only  the  names  of  those 
whose  images  come  up  pleasantly  before  me, 
and  I  do  not  mean  to  say  anything  which 
any  descendant  might  not  read  smilingly. 
But  there  were  some  of  the  black-coated 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  23 

gentry  whose  aspect  was  not  so  agreeable  to 
me.  It  is  very  curious  to  me  to  look  back 
on  my  early  likes  and  dislikes,  and  see  how 
as  a  child  I  was  attracted  or  repelled  by 
such  and  such  ministers,  a  good  deal,  as  I 
found  out  long  afterwards,  according  to 
their  theological  beliefs.  On  the  whole,  I 
think  the  old-fashioned  New  England  divine 
softening  down  into  Arminianism  was  about 
as  agreeable  as  any  of  them.  And  here  I 
may  remark,  that  a  mellowing  rigor ist  is 
always  a  much  pleasanter  object  to  contem 
plate  than  a  tightening  liberal,  as  a  cold  day 
warming  up  to  32°  Fahrenheit  is  much  more 
agreeable  than  a  warm  one  chilling  down  to 
the  same  temperature.  The  least  pleasing 
change  is  that  kind  of  mental  hemiplegia 
which  now  and  then  attacks  the  rational 
side  of  a  man  at  about  the  same  period  of 
life  when  one  side  of  the  body  is  liable  to 
be  palsied,  and  in  fact  is,  very  probably, 
the  same  thing  as  palsy,  in  another  form. 
The  worst  of  it  is  that  the  subjects  of  it 
never  seem  to  suspect  that  they  are  intellec 
tual  invalids,  stammerers  and  cripples  at 
best,  but  are  all  the  time  hitting  out  at 
their  old  friends  with  the  well  arm,  and  call 
ing  them  hard  names  out  of  their  twisted 
mouths. 


24  THE  POET  AT 

It  was  a  real  delight  to  have  one  of  those 
good,  hearty,  happy,  benignant  old  clergy 
men  pass  the  Sunday  with  us,  and  I  can  re 
member  some  whose  advent  made  the  day 
feel  almost  like  "  Thanksgiving."  But  now 
and  then  would  come  along  a  clerical  visitor 
with  a  sad  face  and  a  wailing  voice,  which 
sounded  exactly  as  if  somebody  must  be  ly 
ing  dead  up  stairs,  who  took  no  interest  in 
us  children,  except  a  painful  one,  as  being 
in  a  bad  way  with  our  cheery  looks,  and  did 
more  to  un  christianize  us  with  his  woebegone 

O 

ways  than  all  his  sermons  were  like  to  ac 
complish  in  the  other  direction.  I  remem 
ber  one  in  particular,  who  twitted  me  so 
with  my  blessings  as  a  Christian  child,  and 
whined  so  to  me  about  the  naked  black  chil 
dren  who,  like  the  "  Little  Vulgar  Boy," 
"  had  n't  got  no  supper  and  had  n't  got  no 
ma,"  and  had  n't  got  no  Catechism,  (how  I 
wished  for  the  moment  I  was  a  little  black 
boy  !)  that  he  did  more  in  that  one  day  to 
make  me  a  heathen  than  he  had  ever  done 
in  a  month  to  make  a  Christian  out  of  an 
infant  Hottentot.  What  a  debt  we  owe  to 
our  friends  of  the  left  centre,  the  Brooklyn 
and  the  Park  Street  and  the  Summer  Street 
ministers;  good,  wholesome,  sound -bodied, 
sane -minded,  cheerful  -  spirited  men,  who 


THE  BEE AKF AST-TABLE,  25 

have  taken  the  place  of  those  wailing  poitri- 
naires  with  the  bandanna  handkerchiefs 
round  their  meagre  throats  and  a  funeral 
service  in  their  forlorn  physiognomies  !  I 
might  have  been  a  minister  myself,  for 
aught  I  know,  if  this  clergyman  had  not 
looked  and  talked  so  like  an  undertaker. 

All  this  belongs  to  one  of  the  side-shows, 
to  which  I  promised  those  who  would  take 
tickets  to  the  main  exhibition  should  have 
entrance  gratis.  If  I  were  writing  a  poem 
you  would  expect,  as  a  matter  of  course, 
that  there  would  be  a  digression  now  and 
then. 

To  come  back  to  the  old  house  and  its 
former  tenant,  the  Professor  of  Hebrew  and 
other  Oriental  languages.  Fifteen  years  he 
lived  with  his  family  under  its  roof.  I 
never  found  the  slightest  trace  of  him  until 
a  few  years  ago,  when  I  cleaned  and  bright 
ened  with  pious  hands  the  brass  lock  of  "  the 
study,"  which  had  for  many  years  been  cov 
ered  with  a  thick  coat  of  paint.  On  that  I 
found  scratched,  as  with  a  nail  or  fork,  the 
following  inscription  :  — 

E  PE 

Only  that  and  nothing  more,  but  the  story 
told  itself.  Master  Edwaixl  Pearson,  then 


26  THE  POET  AT 

about  as  high  as  the  lock,  was  disposed  to 
immortalize  himself  in  monumental  brass, 
and  had  got  so  far  towards  it,  when  a  sud- 
deii  interruption,  probably  a  smart  box  on 
the  ear,  cheated  him  of  his  fame,  except  so 
far  as  this  poor  record  may  rescue  it.  Dead 
long  ago.  I  remember  him  well,  a  grown 
man,  as  a  visitor  at  a  later  period  ;  and,  for 
some  reason,  I  recall  him  in  the  attitude  of 
the  Colossus  of  Rhodes,  standing  full  before 
a  generous  wood-fire,  not  facing  it,  but  quite 
the  contrary,  a  perfect  picture  of  the  con 
tent  afforded  by  a  blazing  hearth  contem 
plated  from  that  point  of  view,  and,  as  the 
heat  stole  through  his  person  and  kindled 
his  emphatic  features,  seeming  to  me  a  pat 
tern  of  manly  beauty.  What  a  statue  gal 
lery  of  posturing  friends  we  all  have  in  our 
memory  !  The  old  Professor  himself  some 
times  visited  the  house  after  it  had  changed 
hands.  Of  course,  my  recollections  are  not 
to  be  wholly  trusted,  but  I  always  think  I 
see  his  likeness  in  a  profile  face  to  be  found 
among  the  illustrations  of  llees's  Cyclopaedia. 
(See  Plates,  Vol.  IV.,  Plate  2,  Painting, 
Diversities  of  the  Human  Face,  Fig.  4.) 

And  now  let  us  return  to  our  chief  pic 
ture.  In  the  days  of  my  earliest  remem 
brance,  a  row  of  tall  Lombard y  poplars 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  27 

mounted  guard  on  the  western  side  of  the 
old  mansion.  Whether,  like  the  cypress, 
these  trees  suggest  the  idea  of  the  funeral 
torch  or  the  monumental  spire,  whether 
their  tremulous  leaves  make  us  afraid  by 
sympathy  with  their  nervous  thrills,  whether 
the  faint  balsamic  smell  of  their  foliage  and 
their  closely  swathed  limbs  have  in  them 
vague  hints  of  dead  Pharaohs  stiffened  in 
their  cerements,  I  will  not  guess  ;  but  they 
always  seemed  to  me  to  give  an  air  of  sepul 
chral  sadness  to  the  house  before  which  they 
stood  sentries.  Not  so  with  the  row  of  elms 
which  you  may  see  leading  up  towards  the 
western  entrance.  I  think  the  patriarch  of 
them  all  went  over  in  the  great  gale  of 
1815  ;  I  know  I  used  to  shake  the  youngest 
of  them  with  my  hands,  stout  as  it  is  now, 
with  a  trunk  that  would  defy  the  bully  of 
Crotona,  or  the  strong  man  whose  liaison 
with  the  Lady  Delilah  proved  so  disastrous. 
The  College  plain  would  be  nothing  with 
out  its  elms.  As  the  long  hair  of  a  woman 
is  a  glory  to  her,  so  are  these  green  tresses 
chat  bank  themselves  against  the  sky  in 
thick  clustered  masses  the  ornament  and  the 
pride  of  the  classic  green.  You  know  the 
"  Washington  elm,"  or  if  you  do  not,  you 
had  better  rekindle  your  patriotism  by  read- 


28  T1IE  POET  AT 

ing  the  inscription,  which  tells  you  that  un 
der  its  shadow  the  great  leader  first  drew 
his  sword  at  the  head  of  an  American  army. 
In  a  line  with  that  you  may  see  two  others : 
the  coral  fan,  as  I  always  called  it  from  its 
resemblance  in  form  to  that  beautiful  marine 
growth,  and  a  third  a  little  farther  along. 
I  have  heard  it  said  that  all  three  were 
planted  at  the  same  time,  and  that  the  dif 
ference  of  their  growth  is  due  to  the  slope 
of  the  ground,  —  the  Washington  elm  being 
lower  than  either  of  the  others.  There  is  a 
row  of  elms  just  in  front  of  the  old  house  on 
the  south.  When  I  was  a  child  the  one  at 
the  southwest  corner  was  struck  by  light 
ning,  and  one  of  its  limbs  and  a  long  ribbon 
of  bark  torn  away.  The  tree  never  fully  re 
covered  its  symmetry  and  vigor,  and  forty 
years  and  more  afterwards  a  second  thunder 
bolt  crashed  upon  it  and  set  its  heart  on  fire, 
like  those  of  the  lost  souls  in  the  Hall  of  Eb- 
lis.  Heaven  had  twice  blasted  it,  and  the 
axe  finished  what  the  lightning  had  begun. 

The  soil  of  the  University  town  is  divided 
into  patches  of  sandy  and  of  clayey  ground. 
The  Common  and  the  College  green,  near 
which  the  old  house  stands,  are  on  one  of 
the  sandy  patches.  Four  curses  are  the 
local  inheritance  :  droughts,  dust,  mud,  and 


THE  BEEAKFAST-TABLE.  29 

canker-worms.  I  cannot  but  think  that  all 
the  characters  of  a  region  help  to  modify  the 
children  born  in  it.  I  am  fond  of  making 
apologies  for  human  nature,  and  I  think  I 
could  find  an  excuse  for  myself  if  I,  too, 
were  dry  and  barren  and  muddy-witted  and 
"  cantankerous,"  —  disposed  to  get  my  back 
up,  like  those  other  natives  of  the  soil. 

I  know  this,  that  the  way  Mother  Earth 
treats  a  boy  shapes  out  a  kind  of  natural 
theology  for  him.  I  fell  into  Manichean 
ways  of  thinking  from  the  teaching  of  my 
garden  experiences.  Like  other  boys  in  the 
country,  I  had  my  patch  of  ground,  to  which, 
in  the  spring-time,  I  intrusted  the  seeds  fur 
nished  me,  with  a  confident  trust  in  their 
resurrection  and  glorification  in  the  better 
world  of  summer.  But  I  soon  found  that 
my  lines  had  fallen  in  a  place  where  -a  vege 
table  growth  had  to  run  the  gauntlet  of  as 
many  foes  and  trials  as  a  Christian  pilgrim. 
Flowers  would  not  blow ;  daffodils  perished 
like  criminals  in  their  condemned  caps, 
without  their  petals  ever  seeing  daylight ; 
roses  were  disfigured  with  monstrous  pro 
trusions  through  their  very  centres,  —  some 
thing  that  looked  like  a  second  bud  pushing 
through  the  middle  of  the  corolla;  lettuces 
aad  cabbages  would  not  head ;  radishes 


30  THE  POET  AT 

knotted  themselves  until  they  looked  like 
centenarians'  fingers ;  and  on  every  stem,  on 
every  leaf,  and  both  sides  of  it,  and  at  the 
root  of  everything  that  grew,  was  a  profes 
sional  specialist  in  the  shape  of  grub,  cater 
pillar,  aphis,  or  other  expert,  whose  business 
it  was  to  devour  that  particular  part,  and 
help  murder  the  whole  attempt  at  vegeta 
tion.  Such  experiences  must  influence  a 
child  born  to  them.  A  sandy  soil,  where 
nothing  flourishes  but  weeds  and  evil  beasts 
of  small  dimensions,  must  breed  different 
qualities  in  its  human  offspring  from  one  of 
those  fat  and  fertile  spots  which  the  wit 
whom  I  have  once  before  quoted  described 
so  happily  that,  if  I  quoted  the  passage,  its 
brilliancy  would  spoil  one  of  my  pages,  as  a 
diamond  breastpin  sometimes  kills  the  social 
effect  of  the  wearer,  who  might  have  passed 
for  a  gentleman  without  it.  Your  arid 
patch  of  earth  should  seem  to  be  the  natural 
birthplace  of  the  leaner  virtues  and  the 
feebler  vices,  —  of  temperance  and  the  do 
mestic  proprieties  on  the  one  hand,  with  a 
tendency  to  light  weights  in  groceries  and 
provisions,  and  to  clandestine  abstraction 
from  the  person  on  the  other,  as  opposed  to 
the  free  hospitality,  the  broadly  planned 
burglaries,  and  the  largely  conceived  homi- 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  31 

cicles  of  our  rich  Western  alluvial  regions.  ' 
Yet  Nature  is  never  wholly  unkind.  Eco 
nomical  as  she  was  in  my  unparadised  Eden, 
hard  as  it  was  to  make  some  of  my  floral 
houris  unveil,  still  the  damask  roses  sweet 
ened  the  June  breezes,  the  bladed  and 
plumed  flower-de-luces  unfolded  their  close- 
wrapped  cones,  and  larkspurs  and  lupins, 
lady's  delights,  —  plebeian  manifestations 
of  the  pansy,  —  self-sowing  marigolds,  holly 
hocks,  the  forest  flowers  of  two  seasons,  and 
the  perennial  lilacs  and  syringas,  —  all  whis 
pered  to  the  winds  blowing  over  them  that 
some  caressing  presence  was  around  me. 

Beyond  the  garden  was  "  the  field,"  a 
vast  domain  of  four  acres  or  thereabout,  by 
the  measurement  of  after  years,  bordered  to 
the  north  by  a  fathomless  chasm,  —  the  ditch 
the  base-ball  players  of  the  present  era  jump 
over  ;  on  the  east  by  unexplored  territory ; 
on  the  south  by  a  barren  enclosure,  where 
the  red  sorrel  proclaimed  liberty  and  equal 
ity  under  its  drapeau  rouge,  and  succeeded 
in  establishing  a  vegetable  commune  where 
all  were  alike,  poor,  mean,  sour,  and  unin 
teresting  ;  and  on  the  west  by  the  Common, 
not  then  disgraced  by  jealous  enclosures, 
which  make  it  look  like  a  cattle-market. 
Beyond,  as  T  looked  round,  were  the  Col- 


32  THE  POET  AT 

leges,  the  meeting-house,  the  little  square 
market-house,  long  vanished ;  the  burial- 
ground  where  the  dead  Presidents  stretched 
their  weary  bones  under  epitaphs  stretched 
out  at  as  full  length  as  their  subjects ;  the 
pretty  church  where  the  gouty  Tories  used 
to  kneel  on  their  hassocks ;  the  district 
school-house,  and  hard  by  it  Ma'am  Han 
cock's  cottage,  never  so  called  in  those  days, 
but  rather  "  tenfooter  "  ;  then  houses  scat 
tered  near  and  far,  open  spaces,  the  shadowy 
elms,  round  hilltops  in  the  distance,  and 
over  all  the  great  bowl  of  the  sky.  Mind 
you,  this  was  the  WORLD,  as  I  first  knew  it ; 
terra  veteribus  cognita,  as  Mr.  Arrowsmith 
would  have  called  it,  if  he  had  mapped  the 
universe  of  my  infancy. 

But  I  am  forgetting  the  old  house  again 
in  the  landscape.  The  worst  of  a  modern 
stylish  mansion  is,  that  it  has  no  place  for 
ghosts.  I  watched  one  building  not  long 
since.  It  had  no  proper  garret,  to  begin 
with,  only  a  sealed  interval  between  the  roof 
and  attics,  where  a  spirit  could  not  be  ac 
commodated,  unless  it  were  flattened  out 
like  Ravel,  Brother,  after  the  millstone  had 
fallen  on  him.  There  was  not  a  nook  or  a 
corner  in  the  whole  house  fit  to  lodge  any 
respectable  ghost,  for  every  part  was  as 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  33 

open  to  observation  as  a  literary  man's  char 
acter  and  condition,  his  figure  and  estate, 
his  coat  and  his  countenance,  are  to  his  (or 
her)  Bohemian  Majesty  on  a  tour  of  inspec 
tion  through  his  (or  her)  subjects'  keyholes. 
Now  the  old  house  had  wainscots,  behind 
which  the  mice  were  always  scampering  and 
squeaking  and  rattling  down  the  plaster, 
and  enacting  family  scenes  and  parlor  theat 
ricals.  It  had  a  cellar  where  the  cold  slug 
clung  to  the  walls,  and  the  misanthropic 
spider  withdrew  from  the  garish  day  ;  where 
the  green  mould  loved  to  grow,  and  the  long 
white  potato-shoots  went  feeling  along  the 
floor,  if  haply  they  might  find  the  daylight ; 
it  had  great  brick  pillars,  always  in  a  cold 
sweat  with  holding  up  the  burden  they  had 
been  aching  under  day  and  night  for  a  cen 
tury  and  more ;  it  had  sepulchral  arches 
closed  by  rough  doors  that  hung  on  hinges 
rotten  with  rust,  behind  which  doors,  if 
there  was  not  a  heap  of  bones  connected 
with  a  mysterious  disappearance  of  long 
ago,  there  well  might  have  been,  for  it  was 
just  the  place  to  look  for  them.  It  had  a 
garret,  very  nearly  such  a  one  as  it  seems  to 
me  one  of  us  has  described  in  one  of  his 
books  ;  but  let  us  look  at  this  one  as  I  can 
reproduce  it  from  memory.  It  has  a  floor- 


34  THE  POET  AT 

ing  of  laths  with  ridges  of  mortar  squeezed 
up  between  them,  which  if  you  tread  on  you 
will  go  to  —  the  Lord  have  mercy  on  you  ! 
where  will  you  go  to  ?  —  the  same  being 
crossed  by  narrow  bridges  of  boards,  on 
which  you  may  put  your  feet,  but  with  fear 
and  trembling.  Above  you  and  around  you 
are  beams  and  joists,  on  some  of  which  you 
may  see,  when  the  light  is  let  in,  the  marks 
of  the  conchoidal  clippings  of  the  broadaxe, 
showing  the  rude  way  in  which  the  timber 
was  shaped  as  it  came,  full  of  sap,  from  the 
neighboring  forest.  It  is  a  realm  of  dark 
ness  and  thick  dust,  and  shroud-like  cobwebs 
and  dead  things  they  wrap  in  their  gray 
folds.  For  a  garret  is  like  a  sea-shore, 
where  wrecks  are  thrown  up  and  slowly  go 
to  pieces.  There  is  the  cradle  which  the 
old  man  you  just  remember  was  rocked  in  ; 
there  is  the  ruin  of  the  bedstead  he  died  on ; 
that  ugly  slanting  contrivance  used  to  be 
put  under  his  pillow  in  the  days  when  his 
breath  came  hard ;  there  is  his  old  chair 
with  both  arms  gone,  symbol  of  the  desolate 
time  when  he  had  nothing  earthly  left  to 
lean  on ;  there  is  the  large  wooden  reel 
which  the  blear-eyed  old  deacon  sent  the 
minister's  lady,  who  thanked  him  graciously, 
and  twirled  it  smilingly,  and  in  fitting  sea- 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  35 

son  bowed  it  out  decently  to  the  limbo  of 
troublesome  conveniences.  And  there  are 
old  leather  portmanteaus,  like  stranded  por 
poises,  their  mouths  gaping  in  gaunt  hun 
ger  for  the  food  with  which  they  used  to  be 
gorged  to  bulging  repletion ;  and  old  brass 
andirons,  waiting  until  time  shall  revenge 
them  on  their  paltry  substitutes,  and  they 
shall  have  their  own  again,  and  bring  with 
them  the  fore-stick  and  the  back-log  of  an 
cient  days ;  and  the  empty  churn,  with  its 
idle  dasher,  which  the  Nancys  and  Phoebes, 
who  have  left  their  comfortable  places  to  the 
Bridgets  and  Norahs,  used  to  handle  to  good 
purpose  ;  and  the  brown,  shaky  old  spinning- 
wheel,  which  was  running,  it  may  be,  in  the 
days  when  they  were  hanging  the  Salem 
witches. 

Under  the  dark  and  haunted  garret  were 
attic  chambers  which  themselves  had  histo 
ries.  On  a  pane  in  the  northeastern  chamber 
may  be  read  these  names :  "  John  Tracy," 
"  Robert  Roberts,"  "  Thomas  Prince  "  ; 
"  Stultus  "  another  hand  had  added.  When 
I  found  these  names  a  few  years  ago  (wrong 
side  up,  for  the  window  had  been  reversed), 
I  looked  at  once  in  the  Triennial  to  find 
them,  for  the  epithet  showed  that  they  were 
probably  students.  I  found  them  all  under 


36  THE  POET  AT 

the  years  1771  and  1773.  Does  it  please 
their  thin  ghosts  thus  to  be  dragged  to  the 
light  of  day  ?  Has  "  Stultus  "  forgiven  the 
indignity  of  being  thus  characterized  ? 

The  southeast  chamber  was  the  Library 
Hospital.  Every  scholar  should  have  a 
book  infirmary  attached  to  his  library. 
There  should  find  a  peaceable  refuge  the 
many  books,  invalids  from  their  birth,  which 
are  sent  "  with  the  best  regards  of  the 
Author  "  ;  the  respected,  but  unpresentable 
cripples  which  have  lost  a  cover  ;  the  odd 
volumes  of  honored  sets  which  go  mourning 
all  their  days  for  their  lost  brother ;  the 
school-books  which  have  been  so  often  the 
subjects  of  assault  and  battery,  that  they 
look  as  if  the  police  court  must  know  them 
by  heart ;  these  and  still  more  the  pictured 
story-books,  beginning  with  Mother  Goose 
(which  a  dear  old  friend  of  mine  has  just 
been  amusing  his  philosophic  leisure  with 
turning  most  ingeniously  and  happily  into 
the  tongues  of  Virgil  and  Homer),  will  be 
precious  mementos  by  and  by,  when  chil 
dren  and  grandchildren  come  along.  What 
would  I  not  give  for  that  dear  little  paper- 
bound  quarto,  in  large  and  most  legible 
type,  on  certain  pages  of  which  the  tender 
hand  that  was  the  shield  of  my  infancy  had 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  37 

crossed  out  with  deep  black  marks  some 
thing  awful,  probably  about  BEARS,  such  as 
once  tare  two-and-forty  of  us  little  folks  for 
making  faces,  and  the  very  name  of  which 
made  us  hide  our  heads  under  the  bedclothes. 
I  made  strange  acquaintances  in  that 
book  infirmary  up  in  the  southwest  attic. 
The  "  Negro  Plot  "  at  New  York  helped  to 
implant  a  feeling  in  me  which  it  took  Mr. 
Garrison  a  good  many  years  to  root  out. 
C4  Thinks  I  to  Myself,"  an  old  novel,  which 
has  been  attributed  to  a  famous  statesman, 
introduced  me  to  a  world  of  fiction  which 
was  not  represented  on  the  shelves  of  the 
library  proper,  unless  perhaps  by  Crelebs 
in  Search  of  a  Wife,  or  allegories  of  the 
bitter  tonic  class,  as  the  young  doctor  that 
sits  on  the  other  side  of  the  table  would 
probably  call  them.  I  always,  from  an 
early  age,  had  a  keen  eye  for  a  story  with 
a  moral  sticking  out  of  it,  and  gave  it  a 
wide  berth,  though  in  my  later  years  I  have 
myself  written  a  couple  of  "  medicated  nov 
els,"  as  one  of  my  dearest  and  pleasantest 
old  friends  wickedly  called  them,  when  some 
body  asked  her  if  she  had  read  the  last  of 
my  printed  performances.  I  forgave  the 
satire  for  the  charming  esprit  of  the  epi 
thet.  Besides  the  works  1  have  mentioned, 


38  THE  POET  AT 

there  was  an  old,  old  Latin  alchemy  book, 
with  the  manuscript  annotations  of  some 
ancient  Rosicrucian,  in  the  pages  of  which 
I  had  a  vague  notion  that  I  might  find  the 
mighty  secret  of  the  Lapis  JPhilosophorum, 
otherwise  called  Chaos,  the  Dragon,  the 
Green  Lion,  the  Quint  a  Esscntia^  the  Soap 
of  Sages,  the  Vinegar  of  Philosophers,  the 
Dew  of  Heavenly  Grace,  the  Egg,  the  Old 
Man,  the  Sun,  the  Moon,  and  by  all  man 
ner  of  odd  aliases,  as  I  am  assured  by  the 
plethoric  little  book  before  me,  in  parch 
ment  covers  browned  like  a  meerschaum 
with  the  smoke  of  furnaces  and  the  thumb 
ing  of  dead  gold-seekers,  and  the  fingering 
of  bony-handed  book-misers,  and  the  long 
intervals  of  dusty  slumber  on  the  shelves 
of  the  bouquiniste ;  for  next  year  it  will 
be  three  centuries  old,  and  it  had  already 
seen  nine  generations  of  men  when  I  caught 
its  eye  (AlcJiemice  Doctrina)  and  recognized 
it  at  pistol-shot  distance  as  a  prize,  among 
the  breviaries  and  Beures  and  trumpery 
volumes  of  the  old  open-air  dealer  who  ex 
posed  his  treasures  under  the  shadow  of 
St.  Sulpice.  I  have  never  lost  my  taste  for 
alchemy  since  I  first  got  hold  of  the  Palla 
dium  Spagyricum  of  Peter  John  Faber, 
and  sought  —  in  vain,  it  is  true  —  through 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  39 

its  pages  for  a  clear,  intelligible,  and  prac 
tical  statement  of  how  I  could  turn  my  lead 
sinkers  and  the  weights  of  the  tall  kitchen 
clock  into  good  yellow  gold,  specific  gravity 
19.2,  and  exchangeable  for  whatever  I  then 
wanted,  and  for  many  more  things  than  I 
was  then  aware  of.  One  of  the  greatest 
pleasures  of  childhood  is  found  in  the  mys 
teries  which  it  hides  from  the  scepticism  of 
the  elders,  and  works  up  into  small  mythol 
ogies  of  its  own.  I  have  seen  all  this  played 
over  again  in  adult  life,  —  the  same  delight 
ful  bewilderment  of  semi-emotional  belief 
in  listening  to  the  gaseous  promises  of  this 
or  that  fantastic  system,  that  I  found  in  the 
pleasing  mirages  conjured  up  for  me  by  the 
ragged  old  volume  I  used  to  pore  over  in 
the  southeast  attic-chamber. 

The  rooms  of  the  second  story,  the  cham 
bers  of  birth  and  death,  are  sacred  to  silent 
memories. 

Let  us  go  down  to  the  ground-floor.  I 
should  have  begun  with  this,  but  that  the 
historical  reminiscences  of  the  old  house 
have  been  recently  told  in  a  most  interesting 
memoir  by  a  distinguished  student  of  our 
local  history.  I  retain  my  doubts  about 
those  "  dents  "  on  the  floor  of  the  right-hand 
room,  "  the  study  "  of  successive  occupants, 


40  THE  POET  AT 

said  to  have  been  made  by  the  butts  of  the 
Continental  militia's  firelocks,  but  this  was 
the  cause  to  which  the  story  told  me  in  child 
hood  laid  them.  That  military  consulta 
tions  were  held  in  that  room  when  the  house 
was  General  Ward's  headquarters,  that 
the  Provincial  generals  and  colonels  and 
other  men  of  war  there  planned  the  move 
ment  which  ended  in  the  fortifying  of 
Bunker's  Hill,  that  Warren  slept  in  the 
house  the  night  before  the  battle,  that  Presi 
dent  Langdon  went  forth  from  the  western 
door  and  prayed  for  God's  blessing  on  the 
men  just  setting  forth  on  their  bloody  expe 
dition,  —  all  these  things  have  been  told, 
and  perhaps  none  of  them  need  be  doubted. 
But  now  for  fifty  years  and  more  that 
room  has  been  a  meeting-ground  for  the 
platoons  and  companies  which  range  them 
selves  at  the  scholar's  word  of  command. 
Pleasant  it  is  to  think  that  the  retreating 
host  of  books  is  to  give  place  to  a  still  larger 
army  of  volumes,  which  have  seen  service 
under  the  eye  of  a  great  commander.  For 
here  the  noble  collection  of  him  so  freshly 
remembered  as  our  silver-tongued  orator, 
our  erudite  scholar,  our  honored  College 
President,  our  accomplished  statesman,  our 
courtly  ambassador,  are  to  be  reverently 


THE  BEEAKFAST-TABLE.  41 

gathered  by  the  heir  of  his  name,  himself 
not  unworthy  to  be  surrounded  by  that  au 
gust  assembly  of  the  wise  of  all  ages  and  of 
various  lands  and  languages. 

Could  such  a  many-chambered  edifice  have 
stood  a  century  and  a  half  and  not  have  had 
its  passages  of  romance  to  bequeath  their 
lingering  legends  to  the  after -time?  There 
are  other  names  on  some  of  the  small  win 
dow-panes,  which  must  have  had  young 
flesh-and-blood  owners,  and  there  is  one  of 
early  date  which  elderly  persons  have  whis 
pered  was  borne  by  a  fair  woman,  whose 
graces  made  the  house  beautiful  in  the  eyes 
of  the  youth  of  that  time.  One  especially  — 
you  will  find  the  name  of  Fortescue  Yernon, 
of  the  class  of  1780,  in  the  Triennial  Cata 
logue  —  was  a  favored  visitor  to  the  old 
mansion  ;  but  he  went  over  seas,  I  think 
they  told  me,  and  died  still  young,  and  the 
name  of  the  maiden  which  is  scratched  on 
the  window-pane  was  never  changed.  I  am 
telling  the  story  honestly,  as  I  remember  it, 
but  I  may  have  colored  it  unconsciously, 
and  the  legendary  pane  may  be  broken  be 
fore  this  for  aught  I  know.  At  least,  I  have 
named  no  names  except  the  beautiful  one  of 
the  supposed  hero  of  the  romantic  story. 

It  was  a  great  happiness  to   have   been 


42  THE  POET  AT 

born  in  an  old  house  haunted  by  such  recol 
lections,  with  harmless  ghosts  walking  its 
corridors,  with  fields  of  waving  grass  and 
trees  and  singing  birds,  and  that  vast  terri 
tory  of  four  or  five  acres  around  it  to  give  a 
child  the  sense  that  he  was  born  to  a  noble 
principality.  It  has  been  a  great  pleasure 
to  retain  a  certain  hold  upon  it  for  so  many 
years;  and  since  in  the  natural  course  of 
things  it  must  at  length  pass  into  other 
hands,  it  is  a  gratification  to  see  the  old 
place  making  itself  tidy  for  a  new  tenant, 
like  some  venerable  dame  who  is  getting 
ready  to  entertain  a  neighbor  of  condition. 
Not  long  since  a  new  cap  of  shingles  adorned 
this  ancient  mother  among  the  village  — 
now  city  —  mansions.  She  has  dressed  her 
self  in  brighter  colors  than  she  has  hitherto 
worn,  so  they  tell  me,  within  the  last  few 
days.  She  has  modernized  her  aspects  in 
several  ways ;  she  has  rubbed  bright  the 
glasses  through  which  she  looks  at  the  Com 
mon  and  the  Colleges ;  and  as  the  sunsets 
shine  upon  her  through  the  flickering  leaves 
or  the  wiry  spray  of  the  elms  I  remember 
from  my  childhood,  they  will  glorify  her 
into  the  aspect  she  wore  when  President 
Holyoke,  father  of  our  long  since  dead  cen 
tenarian,  looked  upon  her  in  her  youthful 
comeliness. 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  43 

The  quiet  corner  formed  by  this  and  the 
neighboring  residences  has  changed  less  than 
any  place  I  can  remember.  Our  kindly, 
polite,  shrewd,  and  humorous  old  neighbor, 
who  in  former  days  has  served  the  town  as 
constable  and  auctioneer,  and  who  bids  fair 
to  become  the  oldest  inhabitant  of  the  city, 
was  there  when  I  was  born,  and  is  living 
there  to-day.  By  and  by  the  stony  foot  of 
the  great  University  will  plant  itself  on  this 
whole  territory,  and  the  private  recollections 
which  clung  so  tenaciously  and  fondly  to  the 
place  and  its  habitations  will  have  died  with 
those  who  cherished  them. 

Shall  they  ever  live  again  in  the  memory 
of  those  who  loved  them  here  below  ?  What 
is  this  life  without  the  poor  accidents  which 
made  it  our  own,  and  by  which  we  identify 
ourselves  ?  Ah  me !  I  might  like  to  be  a 
winged  chorister,  but  still  it  seems  to  me  I 
should  hardly  be  quite  happy  if  I  could  not 
recall  at  will  the  Old  House  with  the  Long 
Entry,  and  the  White  Chamber  (where  I 
wrote  the  first  verses  that  made  me  known, 
with  a  pencil,  stans  pede  in  uno,  pretty 
nearly),  and  the  Little  Parlor,  and  the 
Study,  and  the  old  books  in  uniforms  as 
varied  as  those  of  the  Ancient  and  Honor 
able  Artillery  Company  used  to  be,  if  my 


44  THE  POET  AT 

memory  serves  me  right,  and  the  front  yard 
with  the  Star-of-Bethlehems  growing,  flower- 
less,  among  the  grass,  and  the  dear  faces  to 
be  seen  no  more  there  or  anywhere  on  this 
earthly  place  of  farewells. 

I  have  told  my  story.  I  do  not  know 
what  special  gifts  have  been  granted  or  de 
nied  me  ;  but  this  I  know,  that  I  am  like  so 
many  others  of  my  fellow-creatures,  that 
when  I  smile,  I  feel  as  if  they  must ;  when 
I  cry,  I  think  their  eyes  fill ;  and  it  always 
seems  to  me  that  when  I  am  most  truly  my 
self  I  come  nearest  to  them  and  am  surest 
of  being  listened  to  by  the  brothers  and  sis 
ters  of  the  larger  family  into  which  I  was 
born  so  long  ago.  I  have  often  feared  they 
might  be  tired  of  me  and  what  I  tell  them. 
But  then,  perhaps,  would  come  a  letter  from 
some  quiet  body  in  some  out-of-the-way 
place,  which  showed  me  that  I  had  said 
something  which  another  had  often  felt  but 
never  said,  or  told  the  secret  of  another's 
heart  in  unburdening  my  own.  Such  evi 
dences  that  one  is  in  the  highway  of  human 
experience  and  feeling  lighten  the  footsteps 
wonderfully.  So  it  is  that  one  is  encouraged 
to  go  on  writing  as  long  as  the  world  has 
anything  that  interests  him,  for  he  never 
knows  how  many  of  his  fellow-beings  he 


THE  BBEAKFAST-TABLE.  45 

may  please  or  profit,  and  in  how  many  places 
his  name  will  be  spoken  as  that  of  a  friend. 
In  the  mood  suggested  by  my  story  I  have 
ventured  on  the  poem  that  follows.  Most 
people  love  this  world  more  than  they  are 
willing  to  confess,  and  it  is  hard  to  conceive 
ourselves  weaned  from  it  so  as  to  feel  no 
emotion  at  the  thought  of  its  most  sacred 
recollections,  —  even  after  a  sojourn  of 
years,  as  we  should  count  the  lapse  of  earthly 
time,  —  in  the  realm  where,  sooner  or  later, 
all  tears  shall  be  wiped  away.  I  hope,  there 
fore,  the  title  of  my  lines  will  not  frighten 
those  who  are  little  accustomed  to  think  of 
men  and  women  as  human  beings  in  any 
state  but  the  present. 


HOMESICK  IN  HEAVEN. 

THE    DIVINE   VOICE. 

Go  seek  thine  earth-born  sisters,  —  thus  the  Voice 
That  all  obey,  —  the  sad  and  silent  three  ; 

These  only,  while  the  hosts  of  heaven  rejoice, 
Smile  never  :  ask  them  what  their  sorrows  be : 

And  when  the  secret  of  their  griefs  they  tell, 
Look  on  them  with  thy  mild,  half-human  eyes  ; 

Say  what  thou  wast  on  earth  ;  thou  knowest  well ; 
So  shall  they  cease  from  unavailing  sighs. 


46  THE  POET  AT 


THE    ANGEL. 

—  Why  thus,  apart,  —  the  swift- winged  herald 

spake,  — 

Sit  ye  with  silent  lips  and  unstrung  lyres 
While  the  trisagion's  blending  chords  awake 
In  shouts  of  joy  from  all  the  heavenly  choirs  ? 

THE    FIRST    SPIRIT. 

—  Chide    not    thy    sisters,  —  thus    the    answer 

came ;  — 
Children   of   earth,   our   half -weaned   nature 

clings 
To  earth's  fond   memories,  and    her  whispered 

name 

Untunes    our    quivering    lips,    our   saddened 
strings  ; 

For  there  we  loved,  and  where  we  love  is  home, 
Home  that  our  feet  may  leave,  but  not  our 
hearts, 

Though  o'er  us  shine  the  jasper-lighted  dome  :  — 
The  chain  may  lengthen,  but  it  never  parts ! 

Sometimes  a  sunlit  sphere  comes  rolling  by, 
And  then  we  softly  whisper,  —  can  it  be  ? 

And  leaning  toward  the  silvery  orb,  we  try 
To  hear  the  music  of  its  murmuring  sea ; 

To  catch,  perchance,  some  flashing  glimpse  of 
green, 


THE  BEE AKF AST-TABLE.  47 

Or  breathe  some  wild-wood  fragrance,  wafted 

through 

The  opening  gates  of  pearl,  that  fold  between 
The    blinding    splendors    and    the    changeless 

blue. 

THE    ANGEL. 

—  Nay,  sister,  nay  !  a  single  healing  leaf 
Plucked  from  the  bough  of  yon  twelve-fruited 

tree, 
Would  soothe  such  anguish,  —  deeper  stabbing 

grief 
Has  pierced  thy  throbbing  heart  — 

THE    FIRST    SPIRIT. 

—  Ah,  woe  is  me  ! 
I  from  my  clinging  babe  was  rudely  torn  ; 

His  tender  lips  a  loveless  bosom  pressed  ; 
Can  I  forget  him  in  my  life  new  born  ? 

O  that  my  darling  lay  upon  my  breast ! 

THE   ANGEL. 

—  And  thou  ?  — 

THE   SECOND   SPIRIT. 

I  was  a  fair  and  youthful  bride, 
The  kiss  of  love  still  burns  upon  my  cheek, 
He  whom  I  worshipped,  ever  at  my  side,  — 
Him  through  the  spirit  realm  in  vain  I  seek. 

Sweet  faces  turn  tbeir  beaming  eyes  on  mine  ; 
Ah  !  not  in  these  the  wished-for  look  I  read ; 


48  THE  POET  AT 

Still  for  that  one  dear  human  smile  I  pine  ; 
Thou  and  none  other  !  —  is  the  lover's  creed. 

THE    ANGEL. 

—  And  whence  thy  sadness  in  a  world  of  bliss 
Where    never    parting    comes,  nor  mourner's 

tear  ? 

Art  thou,  too,  dreaming  of  a  mortal's  kiss 
Amid  the  seraphs  of  the  heavenly  sphere  ? 

THE    THIRD   SPIRIT. 

—  Nay,  tax  not  me  with  passion's  wasting  fire  ; 
When  the  swift  message  set  my  spirit  free, 

Blind,  helpless,  lone,  I  left  my  gray-haired  sire ; 
My  friends  were  many,  he  had  none  save  me. 

I  left  him,  orphaned,  in  the  starless  night  ; 

Alas,  for  him  no  cheerful  morning's  dawn ! 
I  wear  the  ransomed  spirit's  robe  of  white, 

Yet  still  I  hear  him  moaning,  She  is  gone  ! 

THE    ANGEL. 

—  Ye  know  me  not,  sweet  sisters  ?  —  All  in  vain 
Ye  seek  your  lost  ones  in  the  shapes  they  wore  ; 

The  flower  once  opened  may  not  bud  again, 
The  fruit  once  fallen  finds  the  stem  no  more. 

Child,  lover,  sire,  —  yea,   all   things    loved   be 
low,  — 

Fair  pictures  damasked  on  a  vapor's  fold,  — 
Fade  like  the  roseate  flush,  the  golden  glow, 

When  the  bright  curtain  of  the  day  is  rolled. 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  49 

I  was  the  babe  that  slumbered  on  thy  breast. 
—  And,  sister,  mine  the  lips  that  called  thee 

bride. 
—  Mine    were     the    silvered    locks    thy    hand 

caressed, 

That    faithful    hand,    my    faltering    footstep's 
guide  ! 

Each  changing  form,  frail  vesture  of  decay, 
The  soul  unclad  forgets  it  once  hath  worn, 

Stained  with  the  travel  of  the  weary  day, 

And  shamed  with  rents  from  every  wayside 
thorn. 

To  lie,  an  infant,  in  thy  fond  embrace,  — 

To    come    with   love's   warm    kisses    back    to 

thee,  — 

To  show  thine  eyes  thy  gray-haired  father's  face, 
Not  Heaven  itself  could  grant;  this  may  not 
be! 

Then  spread   your  folded  wings,  and   leave   to 

earth 
The  dust  once  breathing  ye  have  mourned  so 

long, 

Till  Love,  new  risen,  owns  his  heavenly  birth, 
And  sorrow's  discords  sweeten  into  song  ! 


50  THE  POET  AT 


II. 


I  am  going  to  take  it  for  granted  now 
and  henceforth,  in  my  report  of  what  was 
said  and  what  was  to  be  seen  at  our  table, 
that  I  have  secured  one  good,  faithful,  lov 
ing  reader,  who  never  finds  fault,  who  never 
gets  sleepy  over  my  pages,  whom  no  critic 
can  bully  out  of  a  liking  for  me,  and  to 
whom  I  am  always  safe  in  addressing  my 
self.  My  one  elect  may  be  man  or  woman, 
old  or  young,  gentle  or  simple,  living  in  the. 
next  block  or  on  a  slope  of  Nevada,  my  fel 
low-countryman  or  an  alien  ;  but  one  such 
reader  I  shall  assume  to  exist  and  have  al 
ways  in  my  thought  when  I  am  writing. 

A  writer  is  so  like  a  lover !  And  a  talk 
with  the  right  listener  is  so  like  an  arm-in 
arm  walk  in  the  moonlight  with  the  soft 
heartbeat  just  felt  through  the  folds  of  mus 
lin  and  broadcloth  !  But  it  takes  very  little 
to  spoil  everything  for  writer,  talker,  lover. 
There  are  a  great  many  cruel  things  besides 
poverty  that  freeze  the  genial  current  of  the 
soul,  as  the  poet  of  the  Elegy  calls  it.  Fire 
can  stand  any  wind,  but  flame  is  easily 
blown  out,  and  then  come  smouldering  and 
smoke,  and  profitless,  slow  combustion  with- 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  51 

out  the  cheerful  blaze  which  sheds  light  all 
round  it.  The  One  Header's  hand  may  shel 
ter  the  flame  ;  the  one  blessed  ministering 
spirit  with  the  vessel  of  oil  may  keep  it 
bright  in  spite  of  the  stream  of  cold  water 
on  the  other  side  doing  its  best  to  put  it  out. 
I  suppose,  if  any  writer,  of  any  distin 
guishable  individuality,  could  look  into  the 
hearts  of  all  his  readers,  he  might  very  prob 
ably  find  one  in  his  parish  of  a  thousand  or 
a  million  who  honestly  preferred  him  to  any 
other  of  his  kind.  I  have  no  doubt  we  have 
each  one  of  us,  somewhere,  our  exact  fac 
simile,  so  like  us  in  all  things  except  the  acci 
dents  of  condition,  that  we  should  love  each 
other  like  a  pair  of  twins,  if  our  natures 
could  once  fairly  meet.  I  know  I  have  my 
counterpart  in  some  State  of  this  Union.  I 
feel  sure  that  there  is  an  Englishman  some 
where  precisely  like  myself.  (I  hope  he 
does  not  drop  his  A's,  for  it  does  not  seem  to 
me  possible  that  the  Royal  Dane  could  have 
remained  faithful  to  his  love  for  Ophelia,  if 
she  had  addressed  him  as  'Amlet.)  There 
is  also  a  certain  Monsieur,  to  me  at  this  mo 
ment  unknown,  and  likewise  a  Herr  Yon 
Something,  each  of  whom  is  essentially  my 
double.  An  Arab  is  at  this  moment  eating 
dates,  a  Mandarin  is  just  sipping  his  tea, 


52  THE  POET  AT 

and  a  South-Sea-Islander  (with  undeveloped 
possibilities)  drinking  the  milk  of  a  cocoa- 
nut,  each  one  of  whom,  if  he  had  been  born 
in  the  gambrel-roofed  house,  and  cultivated 
my  little  sand-patch,  and  grown  up  in  "  the 
Study  "  from  the  height  of  Walton's  Poly 
glot  Bible  to  that  of  the  shelf  which  held 
the  Elzevir  Tacitus  and  Casaubon's  Poly- 
bius,  with  all  the  complex  influences  about 
him  that  surrounded  me,  would  have  been 
so  nearly  what  I  am  that  I  should  have  loved 
him  like  a  brother,  —  always  provided  that 
I  did  not  hate  him  for  his  resemblance  to 
me,  on  the  same  principle  as  that  which 
makes  bodies  in  the  same  electric  condition 
repel  each  other. 

For,  perhaps  after  all,  my  One  Reader  is 
quite  as  likely  to  be  not  the  person  most 
resembling  myself,  but  the  one  to  whom  my 
nature  is  complementary.  Just  as  a  par 
ticular  soil  wants  some  one  element  to  fer 
tilize  it,  just  as  the  body  in  some  conditions 
has  a  kind  of  famine  for  one  special  food, 
so  the  mind  has  its  wants,  which  do  not  al 
ways  call  for  what  is  best,  but  which  know 
themselves  and  are  as  peremptory  as  the 
salt-sick  sailor's  call  for  a  lemon  or  a  raw 
potato,  or,  if  you  will,  as  those  capricious 
"  longings,"  which  have  a  certain  meaning, 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  53 

we  may  suppose,  and  which  at  any  rate  we 
think  it  reasonable  to  satisfy  if  we  can. 

I  was  going  to  say  something  about  our 
boarders  the  other  day  when  I  got  run  away 
with  by  my  local  reminiscences.  I  wish  you 
to  understand  that  we  have  a  rather  select 
company  at  the  table  of  our  boarding-house. 

Our  Landlady  is  a  most  respectable  per 
son,  who  has  seen  better  days,  of  course,  — 
all  landladies  have,  —  but  has  also,  I  feel 
sure,  seen  a  good  deal  worse  ones.  For  she 
wears  a  very  handsome  silk  dress  on  state 
occasions,  with  a  breastpin  set,  as  I  honestly 
believe,  with  genuine  pearls,  and  appears 
habitually  with  a  very  smart  cap,  from  un 
der  which  her  gray  curls  come  out  with  an 
unmistakable  expression,  conveyed  in  the 
hieratic  language  of  the  feminine  priesthood, 
to  the  effect  that  while  there  is  life  there  is 
hope.  And  when  I  come  to  reflect  on  the 
many  circumstances  which  go  to  the  making 
of  matrimonial  happiness,  I  cannot  help 
thinking  that  a  personage  of  her  presentable 
exterior,  thoroughly  experienced  in  all  the 
domestic  arts  which  render  life  comfortable, 
might  make  the  later  years  of  some  hitherto 
companionless  bachelor  very  endurable,  not 
to  say  pleasant. 


54  THE  POET  AT 

The  condition  of  the  Landlady's  family  is, 
from  what  I  learn,  such  as  to  make  the  con 
nection  I  have  alluded  to,  I  hope  with  del 
icacy,  desirable  for  incidental  as  well  as 
direct  reasons,  provided  a  fitting  match 
could  be  found.  I  was  startled  at  hearing 
her  address  by  the  familiar  name  of  Ben 
jamin  the  young  physician  I  have  referred 
to,  until  I  found  on  inquiry,  what  I  might 
have  guessed  by  the  size  of  his  slices  of  pie 
and  other  little  marks  of  favoritism,  that  he 
was  her  son.  He  has  recently  come  back 
from  Europe,  where  he  has  topped  off  his 
home  training  with  a  first-class  foreign 
finish.  As  the  landlady  could  never  have 
educated  him  in  this  way  out  of  the  profits 
of  keeping  boarders,  I  was  not  surprised 
when  I  was  told  that  she  had  received  a 
pretty  little  property  in  the  form  of  a  be 
quest  from  a  former  boarder,  a  very  kind- 
hearted,  worthy  old  gentleman  who  had  been 
long  with  her  and  seen  how  hard  she  worked 
for  food  and  clothes  for  herself  and  this  son 
of  hers,  Benjamin  Franklin  by  his  baptismal 
name.  Her  daughter  had  also  married  well, 
to  a  member  of  what  we  may  call  the  post- 
medical  profession,  that,  namely,  which  deals 
with  the  mortal  frame  after  the  practitioners 
of  the  healing  art  have  done  with  it  and 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  55 

taken  their  leave.  So  thriving  had  this  son- 
in-law  of  hers  been  in  his  business,  that  his 
wife  drove  about  in  her  own  carriage,  drawn 
by  a  pair  of  jet-black  horses  of  most  digni 
fied  demeanor,  whose  only  fault  was  a  ten 
dency  to  relapse  at  once  into  a  walk  after 
every  application  of  a  stimulus  that  quick 
ened  their  pace  to  a  trot ;  which  application 
always  caused  them  to  look  round  upon  the 
driver  with  a  surprised  and  offended  air,  as 
if  he  had  been  guilty  of  a  grave  indecorum. 

The  Landlady's  daughter  had  been  blessed 
with  a  number  of  children,  of  great  sobriety 
of  outward  aspect,  but  remarkably  cheerful 
in  their  inward  habit  of  mind,  more  espe 
cially  on  the  occasion  of  the  death  of  a  doll, 
which  was  an  almost  daily  occurrence,  and 
gave  them  immense  delight  in  getting  up 
a  funeral,  for  which  they  had  a  complete 
miniature  outfit.  How  happy  they  were 
under  their  solemn  aspect !  For  the  head 
mourner,  a  child  of  remarkable  gifts,  could 
actually  make  the  tears  run  down  her 
cheeks,  —  as  real  ones  as  if  she  had  been  a 
grown  person  following  a  rich  relative,  who 
had  not  forgotten  his  connections,  to  his  last 
unfurnished  lodgings. 

So  this  was  a  most  desirable  family  con 
nection  for  the  right  man  to  step  into,  —  a 


56  THE  POET  AT 

thriving,  thrifty  mother-in-law,  who  knew 
what  was  good  for  the  sustenance  of  the 
body,  and  had  no  doubt  taught  it  to  her 
daughter ;  a  medical  artist  at  hand  in  case 
the  luxuries  of  the  table  should  happen  to 
disturb  the  physiological  harmonies  ;  and  in 
the  worst  event,  a  sweet  consciousness  that 
the  last  sad  offices  would  be  attended  to  with 
affectionate  zeal,  and  probably  a  large  dis 
count  from  the  usual  charges. 

It  seems  as  if  I  could  hardly  be  at  this 
table  for  a  year,  if  I  should  stay  so  long, 
without  seeing  some  romance  or  other  work 
itself  out  under  my  eyes ;  and  I  cannot  help 
thinking  that  the  Landlady  is  to  be  the 
heroine  of  the  love-history  like  to  unfold  it 
self.  I  think  I  see  the  little  cloud  in  the 
horizon,  with  a  silvery  lining  to  it,  which 
may  end  in  a  rain  of  cards  tied  round  with 
white  ribbons.  Extremes  meet,  and  who  so 
like  to  be  the  other  party  as  the  elderly  gen 
tleman  at  the  other  end  of  the  table,  as  far 
from  her  now  as  the  length  of  the  board  per 
mits?  I  may  be  mistaken,  but  I  think  this 
is  to  be  the  romantic  episode  of  the  year  be 
fore  me.  Only  it  seems  so  natural  it  is  im 
probable,  for  you  never  find  your  dropped 
money  just  where  you  look  for  it,  and  so  it 
is  with  these  a  priori  matches. 


THE  BEEAKFAST-TABLE.  57 

This  gentleman  is  a  tight,  tidy,  wiry  little 
man,  with  a  small,  brisk  head,  close-cropped 
white  hair,  a  good  wholesome  complexion,  a 
quiet,  rather  kindly  face,  quick  in  his  move 
ments,  neat  in  his  dress,  but  fond  of  wear 
ing  a  short  jacket  over  his  coat,  which  gives 
him  the  look  of  a  pickled  or  preserved 
school-boy.  He  has  retired,  they  say,  from 
a  thriving  business,  with  a  snug  property, 
suspected  by  some  to  be  rather  more  than 
snug,  and  entitling  him  to  be  called  a  capi 
talist,  except  that  this  word  seems  to  be 
equivalent  to  highway  robber  in  the  new 
gospel  of  Saint  Petroleum.  That  he  is 
economical  in  his  habits  cannot  be  denied, 
for  he  saws  and  splits  his  own  wood,  —  for 
exercise,  he  says,  —  and  makes  his  own  fires, 
brushes  his  own  shoes,  and,  it  is  whispered, 
darns  a  hole  in  a  stocking  now  and  then,  — 
all  for  exercise,  I  suppose.  Every  summer 
he  goes  out  of  town  for  a  few  weeks.  On 
a  given  day  of  the  month  a  wagon  stops  at 
the  door  and  takes  up,  not  his  trunks,  for 
he  does  not  indulge  in  any  such  extrava 
gance,  but  the  stout  brown  linen  bags  in 
which  he  packs  the  few  conveniences  he  car 
ries  with  him. 

I  do  not  think  this  worthy  and  economical 
personage  will  have  much  to  do  or  to  say, 


58  THE  POET  AT 

unless  he  marries  the  Landlady.  If  he  does 
that,  he  will  play  a  part  of  some  importance, 
—  but  I  don't  feel  sure  at  all.  His  talk  is 
little  in  amount,  and  generally  ends  in  some 
compact  formula  condensing  much  wisdom 
in  few  words,  as  that  a  man  should  not  put 
all  his  eggs  in  one  basket ;  that  there  are  as 
good  fish  in  the  sea  as  ever  came  out  of  it ; 
and  one  in  particular,  which  he  surprised 
me  by  saying  in  pretty  good  French  one 
day,  to  the  effect  that  the  inheritance  of  the 
world  belongs  to  the  phlegmatic  people, 
which  seems  to  me  to  have  a  good  deal  of 
truth  in  it. 

The  other  elderly  personage,  the  old  man 
with  iron-gray  hair  and  large  round  specta 
cles,  sits  at  my  right  at  table.  He  is  a  re 
tired  college  officer,  a  man  of  books  and 
observation,  and  himself  an  author.  Magis- 
ter  Artium  is  one  of  his  titles  on  the  College 
Catalogue,  and  I  like  best  to  speak  of  him 
as  the  Master,  because  he  has  a  certain  air 
of  authority  which  none  of  us  feel  inclined 
to  dispute.  He  has  given  me  a  copy  of  a 
work  of  his  which  seems  to  me  not  wanting 
in  suggestiveness,  and  which  I  hope  I  shall 
be  able  to  make  some  use  of  in  my  records 
by  and  by.  I  said  the  other  day  that  he 
had  good  solid  prejudices,  whk'h  is  true,  and 


THE  BEEAKFAST-TABLE.  59 

I  like  him  none  the  worse  for  it ;  but  he  has 
also  opinions  more  or  less  original,  valuable, 
probable,  fanciful;  fantastic,  or  whimsical, 
perhaps,  now  and  then ;  which  he  promul 
gates  at  table  somewhat  in  the  tone  of  im~ 
perial  edicts.  Another  thing  I  like  about 
him  is,  that  he  takes  a  certain  intelligent 
interest  in  pretty  much  everything  that  in 
terests  other  people.  I  asked  him  the  other 
day  what  he  thought  moot  about  in  his  wide 
range  of  studies. 

—  Sir,  —  said  he,  —  I  take  stock  in  every 
thing  that  concerns  anybody.    Humani  nikil, 
—  you  know  the  rest.     But  if  you  ask  me 
what  is  my  specialty,  I  should  say,  I  applied 
myself  more  particularly  to  the  contempla 
tion  of  the  Order  of  Things. 

—  A  pretty  wide  subject,  —  I  ventured 
to  suggest. 

—  Not  wide  enough,  sir,  —  not  wide 
enough  to  satisfy  the  desire  of  a  mind  which 
wants  to  get  at  absolute  truth,  without  refer 
ence  to  the  empirical  arrangements  of  our 
particular  planet  and  its  environments.  I 
want  to  subject  the  formal  conditions  of 
space  arid  time  to  a  new  analysis,  and  pro 
ject  a  possible  universe  outside  of  the  Order 
of  Things.  But  I  have  narrowed  myself  by 
studying  the  actual  facts  of  being.  By  and 


60  TUE  POET  AT 

by  —  by  and  by  —  perhaps  —  perhaps,,  I 
hope  to  do  some  sound  thinking  in  heaven  — 
if  I  ever  get  there,  —  he  said  seriously,  and 
it  seemed  to  me  not  irreverently. 

—  I  rather  like  that,  —  I  said.     I  think 
your  telescopic  people    are,  on   the   whole, 
more    satisfactory   than    your    microscopic 
ones. 

[ —  My  left-hand  neighbor  fidgeted  about 
a  little  in  his  chair  as  I  said  this.  But  the 
young  man  sitting  not  far  from  the  land 
lady,  to  whom  my  attention  had  been  at 
tracted  by  the  expression  of  his  eyes,  which 
seemed  as  if  they  saw  nothing  before  him, 
but  looked  beyond  everything,  smiled  a  sort 
of  faint  starlight  smile,  that  touched  me 
strangely ;  for  until  that  moment  he  had  ap 
peared  as  if  his  thoughts  were  far  away,  and 
I  had  been  questioning  whether  he  had  lost 
friends  lately,  or  perhaps  had  never  had 
them,  he  seemed  so  remote  from  our  board 
ing-house  life.  I  will  inquire  about  him,  for 
he  interests  me,  and  I  thought  he  seemed 
interested  as  I  went  on  talking.] 

—  No,  —  I  continued,  —  I  don't  want  to 
have  the  territory  of  a  man's  mind  fenced 
in.     I  don't  want  to  shut  out  the  mystery  of 
the  stars  and  the  awful  hollow  that   holds 
them.     We  have  done  with  those  hypaetliral 


THE  BEEAKFAST-TABLE.  61 

temples,  that  were  open  above  to  the  heavens, 
but  we  can  have  attics  and  skylights  to  them. 
Minds  with  skylights,  —  yes,  —  stop,  let  us 
see  if  we  can't  get  something  out  of  that. 

One -story  intellects,  two -story  intellects, 
three -story  intellects  with  skylights.  All 
fact-collectors,  who  have  no  aim  beyond  their 
facts,  are  one-story  men.  Two  -  story  men 
compare,  reason,  generalize,  using  the  labors 
of  the  fact-collectors  as  well  as  their  own. 
Three-story  men  idealize,  imagine,  predict ; 
their  best  illumination  comes  from  above, 
through  the  skylight.  There  are  minds  with 
large  ground-floors,  that  can  store  an  infinite 
amount  of  knowledge ;  some  librarians,  for 
instance,  who  know  enough  of  books  to  help 
other  people,  without  being  able  to  make 
much  other  use  of  their  knowledge,  have  in 
tellects  of  this  class.  Your  great  working 
lawyer  has  two  spacious  stories ;  his  mind  is 
clear,  because  his  mental  floors  are  large, 
and  he  has  room  to  arrange  his  thoughts  so 
that  he  can  get  at  them,  —  facts  below, 
principles  above,  and  all  in  ordered  series  ; 
poets  are  often  narrow  below,  incapable  of 
clear  statement,  and  with  small  power  of 
consecutive  reasoning,  but  full  of  light,  if 
sometimes  rather  bare  of  furniture,  in  the 
attics. 


62  THE  POET  AT 

-  The   old   Master  smiled.     I  think  he 
suspects    himself  of   a  three-story  intellect, 
and  I  don't  feel  sure  that  he  is  n't  right. 

—  Is  it  dark  meat  or  white  meat  you  will 
be  helped  to  ?  —  said  the  landlady,  address 
ing  the  Master. 

—  Dark  meat  for  me,  always,  —  he    an 
swered.     Then  turning  to  me,  he  began  one 
of   those  monologues    of   his,  such   as  that 
which  put  the  Member  of  the  Haouse  asleep 
the  other  day. 

—  It 's  pretty  much  the  same  in  men  and 
women  and  in  books  and   everything,  that 
it  is  in  turkeys  and  chickens.     Why,  take 
your  poets,  now,  say  Browning  and  Tenny 
son.     Don't  you  think  you  can  say  which  is 
the  dark-meat  and  which  is  the  white-meat 
poet?     And    so  of   the  people    you  know; 
can't  you  pick  out  the  full-flavored,  coarse- 
fibred    characters   from   the   delicate,   fine- 
fibred  ones  ?     And  in  the  same  person,  don't 
you  know  the  same  two  shades  in  different 
parts  of  the  character  that  you  find  in  the 
wing  and  thigh  of  a  partridge  ?     I  suppose 
you  poets  may  like  white  meat   best,  very 
probably  ;  you  had  rather  have  a  wing  than 
a  drumstick,  I  dare  say. 

-  Why,  yes,  —  said  I,  —  I  suppose  some 


THE  BEEAKFAST-TABLE.  63 

of  us  do.  Perhaps  it  is  because  a  bird  flies 
with  his  white-fleshed  limbs  and  walks  with 
the  dark-fleshed  ones.  Besides,  the  wing- 
muscles  are  nearer  the  heart  than  the  leg- 
muscles. 

I  thought  that  sounded  mighty  pretty, 
and  paused  a  moment  to  pat  myself  on  the 
back,  as  is  my  wont  when  I  say  something 
that  I  think  of  superior  quality.  So  I  lost 
my  innings ;  for  the  Master  is  apt  to  strike 
in  at  the  end  of  a  bar,  instead  of  waiting 
for  a  rest,  if  I  may  borrow  a  musical  phrase. 
No  matter,  just  at  this  moment,  what  he 
said;  but  he  talked  the  Member  of  the 
Haouse  asleep  again. 

They  have  a  new  term  nowadays  (I  am 
speaking  to  you,  the  Reader)  for  people  that 
do  a  good  deal  of  talking;  they  call  them 
" conversationists,"  or  "conversationalists  " ; 
talkists,  I  suppose,  would  do  just  as  well.  It 
is  rather  dangerous  to  get  the  name  of  being 
one  of  these  phenomenal  manifestations,  as 
one  is  expected  to  say  something  remarkable 
every  time  one  opens  one's  mouth  in  com 
pany.  It  seems  hard  not  to  be  able  to  ask 
for  a  piece  of  bread  or  a  tumbler  of  water, 
without  a  sensation  running  round  the  table, 
as  if  one  were  an  electric  eel  or  a  torpedo, 
and  could  n't  be  touched  without  giving  a 


64  THE  POET  AT 

shock.  A  fellow  is  n't  all  battery,  is  he  ? 
The  idea  that  a  Gymnotus  can't  swallow  his 
worm  without  a  coruscation  of  animal  light 
ning,  is  hard  on  that  brilliant  but  sensa 
tional  being.  Good  talk  is  not  a  matter  of 
will  at  all ;  it  depends  —  you  know  we  are 
all  half-materialists  nowadays  —  on  a  cer 
tain  amount  of  active  congestion  of  the 
brain,  and  that  comes  when  it  is  ready,  and 
not  before.  I  saw  a  man  get  up  the  other 
day  in  a  pleasant  company,  and  talk  away 
for  about  five  minutes,  evidently  by  a  pure 
effort  of  will.  His  person  was  good,  his 
voice  was  pleasant,  but  anybody  could  see 
that  it  was  all  mechanical  labor;  he  was 
sparring  for  wind,  as  the  Hon.  John  Mor- 
rissey,  M.  C..  would  express  himself.  Pres 
ently,  — 

Do  you,  —  Beloved,  I  am  afraid  you  are 
not  old  enough,  —  but  do  you  remember  the 
days  of  the  tin  tinder-box,  the  flint,  and  steel  ? 
Click !  click  1  click !  —  Ah-h-h !  knuckles  that 
time  !  click !  click !  CLICK  !  a  spark  has  taken, 
and  is  eating  into  the  black  tinder,  as  a  six- 
year-old  eats  into  a  sheet  of  gingerbread. 

Presently,  after  hammering  away  for  his 
five  minutes  with  mere  words,  the  spark  of 
a  happy  expression  took  somewhere  among 
the  mental  combustibles,  and  then  for  ten 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE,  65 

minutes  we  had  a  pretty,  wandering,  scintil 
lating  play  of  eloquent  thought,  that  enliv 
ened,  if  it  did  not  kindle,  all  around  it.  If 
you  want  the  real  philosophy  of  it,  I  will 
give  it  to  you.  The  chance  thought  or  ex 
pression  struck  the  nervous  centre  of  con 
sciousness,  as  the  rowel  of  a  spur  stings  the 
flank  of  a  racer.  Away  through  all  the 
telegraphic  radiations  of  the  nervous  cords 
flashed  the  intelligence  that  the  brain  was 
kindling,  and  must  be  fed  with  something 
or  other,  or  it  would  burn  itself  to  ashes. 
And  all  the  great  hydraulic  engines  poured 
in  their  scarlet  blood,  and  the  fire  kindled, 
and  the  flame  rose ;  for  the  blood  is  a  stream 
that,  like  burning  rock-oil,  at  once  kindles, 
and  is  itself  the  fuel.  You  can't  order  these 
organic  processes,  any  more  than  a  milliner 
can  make  a  rose.  She  can  make  something 
that  looks  like  a  rose,  more  or  less,  but  it 
takes  all  the  forces  of  the  universe  to  finish 
and  sweeten  that  blossom  in  your  button 
hole  ;  and  you  may  be  sure  that  when  the 
orator's  brain  is  in  a  flame,  when  the  poet's 
heart  is  in  a  tumult,  it  is  something  mightier 
than  he  and  his  will  that  is  dealing  with 
him  !  As  I  have  looked  from  one  of  the 
northern  windows  of  the  street  which  com 
mands  our  noblo  estuary  —  the  view  through 


66  THE  POET  AT 

which  is  a  picture  on  an  illimitable  canvas 
and  a  poem  in  innumerable  cantos,  —  I  have 
sometimes  seen  a  pleasure  -  boat  drifting 
along",  her  sail  flapping,  and  she  seeming  as 
if  she  had  neither  will  nor  aim.  At  her  stern 
a  man  was  laboring  to  bring  her  head  round 
with  an  oar,  to  little  purpose,  as  it  seemed 
to  those  who  watched  him  pulling  and  tug 
ging.  But  all  at  once  the  wind  of  heaven, 
which  had  wandered  all  the  way  from 
Florida  or  from  Labrador,  it  may  be,  struck 
full  upon  the  sail,  and  it  swelled  and  rounded 
itself,  like  a  white  bosom  that  had  burst  its 
bodice,  and  — 

—  You  are  right ;  it  is  too  true  !  but  how 
I  love  these  pretty  phrases  !  I  am  afraid  I 
am  becoming  an  epicure  in  words,  which  is 
a  bad  thing  to  be,  unless  it  is  dominated  by 
something  infinitely  better  than  itself.  But 
there  is  a  fascination  in  the  mere  sound  of 
articulated  breath  ;  of  consonants  that  resist 
with  the  firmness  of  a  maid  of  honor,  or  half 
or  wholly  yield  to  the  wooing  lips ;  of  vowels 
that  flow  and  murmur,  each  after  its  kind ; 
the  peremptory  b  and  p,  the  brittle  &,  the 
vibrating  r,  the  insinuating  s,  the  feathery 
y,  the  velvety  v,  the  bell- voiced  m,  the  tran 
quil  broad  <7,  the  penetrating  e,  the  cooing 
u,  the  emotional  o,  and  the  beautiful  com- 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  67 

binations  of  alternate  rock  and  stream,  as  it 
were,  that  they  give  to  the  rippling  flow  of 
speech,  —  there  is  a  fascination  in  the  skilful 
handling  of  these,  which  the  great  poets  and 
even  prose-writers  have  not  disdained  to 
acknowledge  and  use  to  recommend  their 
thought.  What  do  you  say  to  this  line  of 
Homer  as  a  piece  of  poetical  full-band  music  ? 
I  know  you  read  the  Greek  characters  with 
perfect  ease,  but  permit  me,  just  for  my 
own  satisfaction,  to  put  it  into  English  let 
ters  :  •• — 

Aigle  pamphanoosa  di'  aitheros  ouranon  ike ! 

as  if  he  should  have  spoken  in  our  poorer 
phrase  of 

Splendor  far  shining  through  ether  to  heaven  ascending. 

That  Greek  line,  which  I  do  not  remember 
having  heard  mention  of  as  remarkable,  has 
nearly  every  consonantal  and  vowel  sound 
in  the  language.  Try  it  by  the  Greek  and 
by  the  English  alphabet ;  it  is  a  curiosity. 
Tell  me  that  old  Homer  did  not  roll  his 
sightless  eyeballs  about  with  delight,  as  he 
thundered  out  these  ringing  syllables  !  It 
seems  hard  to  think  of  his  going  round  like 
a  hand-organ  man,  with  such  music  and 
such  thought  as  his  to  earn  his  bread  with. 
One  can't  help  wishing  that  Mr.  Pugh  could 


68  THE  POEf  AT 

have  got  at  him  for  a  single  lecture,  at  least, 
of  the  "  Star  Course,"  or  that  he  could  have 
appeared  in  the  Music  Hall,  "  for  this  night 
only." 

—  I  know  I  have  rambled,  but  I  hope  you 
see  that  this  is  a  delicate  way  of  letting  you 
into  the  nature  of  the  individual  who  is,  offi 
cially,  the  principal  personage  at  our  table. 
It  would  hardly  do  to  describe  him  directly, 
you  know.  But  you  must  not  think,  be 
cause  the  lightning  zigzags,  it  does  not  know 
where  to  strike. 

I  shall  try  to  go  through  the  rest  of  my 
description  of  our  boarders  with  as  little  of 
digression  as  is  consistent  with  my  nature. 
I  think  we  have  a  somewhat  exceptional 
company.  Since  our  landlady  has  got  up  in 
the  world,  her  board  has  been  decidedly  a 
favorite  with  persons  a  little  above  the  aver 
age  in  point  of  intelligence  and  education. 
In  fact,  ever  since  a  boarder  of  hers,  not 
wholly  unknown  to  the  reading  public, 
brought  her  establishment  into  notice,  it  has 
attracted  a  considerable  number  of  literary 
and  scientific  people,  and  now  and  then  a 
politician,  like  the  Member  of  the  House  of 
Representatives,  otherwise  called  the  Great 
and  General  Court  of  the  State  of  Massa 
chusetts.  The  consequence  is,  that  there  is 


THE  BEE AKF AST-TABLE.  69 

more  individuality  of  character  than  in  a 
good  many  similar  boarding-houses,  where 
all  are  business-men,  engrossed  in  the  same 
pursuit  of  money-making,  or  all  are  engaged 
in  politics,  and  so  deeply  occupied  with  the 
welfare  of  the  community  that  they  can 
think  and  talk  of  little  else. 

At  my  left  hand  sits  as  singular-looking  a 
human  being  as  I  remember  seeing  outside 
of  a  regular  museum  or  tent-show.  His 
black  coat  shines  as  if  it  had  been  polished  ; 
and  it  has  been  polished  on  the  wearer's 
back,  no  doubt,  for  the  arms  and  other 
points  of  maximum  attrition  are  particularly 
smooth  and  bright.  Round  shoulders,  - 
stooping  over  some  minute  labor,  I  suppose. 
Very  slender  limbs,  with  bends  like  a  grass 
hopper's  ;  sits  a  great  deal,  I  presume ;  looks 
as  if  he  might  straighten  them  out  all  of 
a  sudden,  and  jump  instead  of  walking. 
Wears  goggles  very  commonly ;  says  it  rests 
his  eyes,  which  he  strains  in  looking  at  very 
small  objects.  Voice  has  a  dry  creak,  as  if 
made  by  some  small  piece  of  mechanism 
that  wanted  oiling.  I  don't  think  he  is  a 
botanist,  for  he  does  not  smell  of  dried 
herbs,  but  carries  a  camphorated  atmosphere 
about  with  him,  as  if  to  keep  the  moths  from 


70  THE  POET  AT 

attacking  him.  I  must  find  out  what  is  his 
particular  interest.  One  ought  to  know 
something  about  his  immediate  neighbors  j;t 
the  table.  This  is  what  I  said  to  myself, 
before  opening  a  conversation  with  him. 
Everybody  in  our  ward  of  the  city  was  in 
a  great  stir  about  a  certain  election,  and  I 
thought  I  might  as  well  begin  with  that  as 
anything. 

—  How  do  you  think  the  vote  is  likely  to 
go  to-morrow  ?  —  I  said. 

—  It  is  n't  to-morrow.  —  he  answered,  — 
it 's  next  month. 

—  Next  month  !  —  said  I.  —  Why,  what 
election  do  you  mean  ? 

-  I  mean  the  election  to  the  Presidency 
of  the  Entomological  Society,  sir,  —  he 
creaked,  with  an  air  of  surprise,  as  if  no 
body  could  by  any  possibility  have  been 
thinking  of  any  other.  Great  competition, 
sir,  between  the  dipterists  and  the  lepidop- 
terists  as  to  which  shall  get  in  their  can 
didate.  Several  close  ballotings  already ; 
adjourned  for  a  fortnight.  Poor  concerns 
both  of  'em.  Wait  till  our  turn  comes. 

—  I  suppose  you  are  an  entomologist  ?  — 
I  said  with  a  note  of  interrogation. 

—  Not  quite  so  ambitious  as  that,  sir.     I 
should  like  to  put  my  eyes  on  the  individual 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  71 

entitled  to  that  name  !  A  society  may  call 
itself  an  Entomological  Society,  but  the  man 
who  arrogates  such  a  broad  title  as  that  to 
himself,  in  the  present  state  of  science,  is 
a  pretender,  sir,  a  dilettante,  an  impostor  ! 
No  man  can  be  truly  called  an  entomologist, 
sir  ;  the  subject  is  too  vast  for  any  single 
human  intelligence  to  grasp. 

—  May  I  venture  to  ask,  —  I  said,  a  little 
awed  by  his  statement  and  manner,  —  what 
is  your  special  province  of  study  ? 

I  am  often  spoken  of  as  a  Coleopterist,  — 
he  said,  —  but  I  have  no  right  to  so  com 
prehensive  a  name.  The  genus  Scarabaeus 
is  what  I  have  chiefly  confined  myself  to, 
and  ought  to  have  studied  exclusively.  The 
beetles  proper  are  quite  enough  for  the  labor 
of  one  man's  life.  Call  me  a  Scarabeeist  if 
you  will ;  if  I  can  prove  myself  worthy  of 
that  name,  my  highest  ambition  will  be  more 
than  satisfied. 

I  think,  by  way  of  compromise  and  con 
venience,  I  shall  call  him  the  Scarabee.  He 
has  come  to  look  wonderfully  like  those  crea 
tures,  —  the  beetles,  I  mean,  —  by  being  so 
much  among  them.  His  room  is  hung  round 
with  cases  of  them,  each  impaled  on  a  pin 
driven  through  him,  something  as  they  used 
to  bury  suicides.  These  cases  take  the 


72  THE  POET  AT 

place  for  him  of  pictures  and  all  other  orna 
ments.  That  Boy  steals  into  his  room  some 
times,  and  stares  at  them  with  great  admi 
ration,  and  has  himself  undertaken  to  form 
a  rival  cabinet,  chiefly  consisting  of  flies,  so 
far,  arranged  in  ranks  superintended  by  an 
occasional  spider. 

The  old  Master,  who  is  a  bachelor,  has  a 
kindly  feeling  for  this  little  monkey,  and 
those  of  his  kind. 

-  I  like  children,  —  he  said  to  me  one 
day  at  table,  —  I  like  'em,  and  I  respect  'em. 
Pretty  much  all  the  honest  truth-telling 
there  is  in  the  world  is  done  by  them.  Do 
you  know  they  play  the  part  in  the  house 
hold  which  the  king's  jester,  who  very  often 
had  a  mighty  long  head  under  his  cap  and 
bells,  used  to  play  for  a  monarch  ?  There  's 
no  radical  club  like  a  nest  of  little  folks  in  a 
nursery.  Did  you  ever  watch  a  baby's  fin 
gers  ?  I  have,  often  enough,  though  I 
never  knew  what  it  was  to  own  one.  —  The 
Master  paused  half  a  minute  or  so,  —  sighed, 
-  perhaps  at  thinking  what  he  had  missed 
in  life,  —  looked  up  at  me  a  little  vacantly. 
I  saw  what  was  the  matter ;  he  had  lost  the 
thread  of  his  talk. 

—  Baby's  fingers,  —  I  intercalated. 

—  Yes,  yes ;  did  you  ever  see  how  they 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  73 

will  poke  those  wonderful  little  fingers  of 
theirs  into  every  fold  and  crack  and  crevice 
they  can  get  at  ?  That  is  their  first  educa 
tion,  feeling  their  way  into  the  solid  facts 
of  the  material  world.  When  they  begin  to 
talk  it  is  the  same  thing  over  again  in  an 
other  shape.  If  there  is  a  crack  or  a  flaw 
in  your  answer  to  their  confounded  shoulder- 
hitting  questions,  they  will  poke  and  poke 
until  they  have  got  it  gaping  just  as  the 
baby's  fingers  have  made  a  rent  out  of  that 
atom  of  a  hole  in  his  pinafore  that  your  old 
eyes  never  took  notice  of.  Then  they  make 
such  fools  of  us  by  copying  on  a  small  scale 
what  we  do  in  the  grand  manner.  I  wonder 
if  it  ever  occurs  to  our  dried-up  neighbor 
there  to  ask  himself  whether  That  Boy's 
collection  of  flies  is  n't  about  as  significant 
in  the  Order  of  Things  as  his  own  Museum 
of  Beetles  ? 

—  I  could  n't  help  thinking  that  perhaps 
That  Boy's  questions  about  the  simpler  mys 
teries  of  life  might  have  a  good  deal  of  the 
same  kind  of  significance  as  the  Master's  in 
quiries  into  the  Order  of  Things. 

—  On  my  left,  beyond  my  next  neighbor 
the  Scarabee,  at  the  end  of  the  table,  sits  a 
person  of  whom  we  know  little,  except  that 


74  THE  POET  AT 

.he  carries  about  him  more  palpable  reminis 
cences  of  tobacco  and  the  allied  sources  of 
comfort  than  a  very  sensitive  organization 
might  find  acceptable.  The  Master  does 
not  seem  to  like  him  much,  for  some  reason 
or  other,  —  perhaps  he  has  a  special  aversion 
to  the  odor  of  tobacco.  As  his  forefinger 
shows  a  little  too  distinctly  that  he  uses  a 
pen,  I  shall  compliment  him  by  calling  him 
the  Man  of  Letters,  until  I  find  out  more 
about  him. 

—  The  Young  Girl  who  sits  on  my  right, 
next  beyond  the  Master,  can  hardly  be  more 
than  nineteen  or  twenty  years  old.  I  wish 
I  could  paint  her  so  as  to  interest  others  as 
much  as  she  does  me.  But  she  has  not  a 
profusion  of  sunny  tresses  wreathing  a  neck 
of  alabaster,  and  a  cheek  where  the  rose  and 
the  lily  are  trying  to  settle  their  old  quarrel 
with  alternating  victory.  Her  hair  is  brown, 
her  cheek  is  delicately  pallid,  her  forehead 
is  too  ample  for  a  ball-room  beauty's.  A 
single  faint  line  between  the  eyebrows  is  the 
record  of  long-continued  anxious  efforts  to 
please  in  the  task  she  has  chosen,  or  rather 
which  has  been  for  *ed  upon  her.  It  is  the 
same  line  of  anxious  and  conscientious  effort 
which  I  saw  not  loii'jr  since  on  the  forehead 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  75 

of  one  of  the  sweetest  and  truest  singers  who 
has  visited  us ;  the  same  which  is  so  striking 
on  the  masks  of  singing  women  painted 
upon  the  facade  of  our  Great  Organ,  —  that 
Himalayan  home  of  harmony  which  you  are 
to  see  and  then  die,  if  you  don't  live  where 
you  can  see  and  hear  it  often.  Many  deaths 
have  happened  in  a  neighboring  large  city 
from  that  well-known  complaint,  Icterus  In- 
vidiosorum,  after  returning  from  a  visit  to 
the  Music  Hall.  The  invariable  symptom 
of  a  fatal  attack  is  the  Risus  Sardonicus.  — 
But  the  Young  Girl.  She  gets  her  living 
by  writing  stories  for  a  newspaper.  Every 
week  she  furnishes  a  new  story.  If  her 
head  aches  or  her  heart  is  heavy,  so  that  she 
does  not  come  to  time  with  her  story,  she 
falls  behindhand  and  has  to  live  on  credit. 
It  sounds  well  enough  to  say  that  "  she  sup 
ports  herself  by  her  pen,"  but  her  lot  is  a 
trying  one  ;  it  repeats  the  doom  of  the  Dana- 
ides.  The  "Weekly  Bucket"  has  no  bot 
tom,  and  it  is  her  business  to  help  fill  it. 
Imagine  for  one  moment  what  it  is  to  tell  a 
tale  that  must  flow  on,  flow  ever,  without 
pausing ;  the  lover  miserable  and  happy  this 
week,  to  begin  miserable  again  next  week 
and  end  as  before  ;  the  villain  scowling,  plot 
ting,  punished  ;  to  scowl,  plot,  and  get  pun- 


76  THE  POET  AT 

ished  again  in  our  next ;  an  endless  series  of 
woes  and  blisses,  into  each  paragraph  of 
which  the  forlorn  artist  has  to  throw  all  the 
liveliness,  all  the  emotion,  all  the  graces  of 
style  she  is  mistress  of,  for  the  wages  of  a 
maid  of  all  work,  and  no  more  recognition 
or  thanks  from  anybody  than  the  apprentice 
who  sets  the  types  for  the  paper  that  prints 
her  ever-ending  and  ever-beginning  stories. 
And  yet  she  has  a  pretty  talent,  sensibility, 
a  natural  way  of  writing,  an  ear  for  the 
music  of  verse,  in  which  she  sometimes  in 
dulges  to  vary  the  dead  monotony  of  ever 
lasting  narrative,  and  a  sufficient  amount  of 
invention  to  make  her  stories  readable.  I 
have  found  my  eyes  dimmed  over  them  of- 
tener  than  once,  more  with  thinking  about 
her,  perhaps,  than  about  her  heroes  and 
heroines.  Poor  little  body !  Poor  little 
mind !  Poor  little  soul !  She  is  one  of 
that  great  company  of  delicate,  intelligent, 
emotional  young  creatures,  who  are  waiting, 
like  that  sail  I  spoke  of,  for  some  breath  of 
heaven  to  fill  their  white  bosoms,  —  love,  the 
right  of  every  woman ;  religious  emotion, 
sister  of  love,  with  the  same  passionate  eyes, 
but  cold,  thin,  bloodless  hands,  —  some  en 
thusiasm  of  humanity  or  divinity  ;  and  find 
that  life  offers  them,  instead,  a  seat  on  a 


THE  BEEAKFAST-TABLE  11 

wooden  bench,  a  chain  to  fasten  them  to  it, 
and  a  heavy  oar  to  pull  day  and  night.  We 
read  the  Arabian  tales  and  pity  the  doomed 
lady  who  must  amuse  her  lord  and  master 
from  day  to  day  or  have  her  head  cut  off  ; 
how  much  better  is  a  mouth  without  bread 
to  fill  it  than  no  mouth  at  all  to  fill,  because 
no  head  ?  We  have  all  round  us  a  weary- 
eyed  company  of  Scheherezades !  This  is 
one  of  them,  and  I  may  call  her  by  that  name 
when  it  pleases  me  to  do  so. 

The  next  boarder  I  have  to  mention  is  the 
one  who  sits  between  the  Young  Girl  and 
the  Landlady.  In  a  little  chamber  into 
which  a  small  thread  of  sunshine  finds  its 
way  for  half  an  hour  or  so  every  day  during 
a  month  or  six  weeks  of  the  spring  or  au 
tumn,  at  all  other  times  obliged  to  content 
itself  with  ungilded  daylight,  lives  this 
boarder,  whom,  without  wronging  any  oth 
ers  of  our  company,  I  may  call,  as  she  is 
very  generally  called  in  the  household,  The 
Lady.  In  giving  her  this  name  it  is  not 
meant  that  there  are  no  other  ladies  at  our 
table,  or  that  the  handmaids  who  serve  us 
are  not  ladies,  or  to  deny  the  general  propo 
sition  that  everybody  who  wears  the  un bifur 
cated  garment  is  entitled  to  that  appellation. 


78  THE  POET  AT 

Only  this  lady  has  a  look  and  manner  which 
there  is  no  mistaking  as  belonging  to  a  per 
son  always  accustomed  to  refined  and  elegant 
society.  Her  style  is  perhaps  a  little  more 
courtly  and  gracious  than  some  would  like. 
The  language  and  manner  which  betray  the 
habitual  desire  of  pleasing,  and  which  add  a 
charm  to  intercourse  in  the  higher  social  cir 
cles,  are  liable  to  be  construed  by  sensitive 
beings  unused  to  such  amenities  as  an  odious 
condescension  when  addressed  to  persons  of 
less  consideration  than  the  accused,  and  as  a 
still  more  odious  —  you  know  the  word  — 
when  directed  to  those  who  are  esteemed  by 
the  world  as  considerable  personages.  But  of 
all  this  the  accused  are  fortunately  wholly  un 
conscious,  for  there  is  nothing  so  entirely  nat 
ural  and  unaffected  as  the  highest  breeding. 

From  an  aspect  of  dignified  but  undis 
guised  economy  which  showed  itself  in  her 
dress  as  well  as  in  her  limited  quarters,  I 
suspected  a  story  of  shipwrecked  fortune, 
and  determined  to  question  our  Landlady. 
That  worthy  woman  was  delighted  to  tell  the 
history  of  her  most  distinguished  boarder. 
She  was,  as  I  had  supposed,  a  gentlewoman 
whom  a  change  of  circumstances  had  brought 
down  from  her  high  estate. 

—  Did  I  know  the  Goldenrod  family  ?  — - 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  79 

Of  course  I  did.  —  Well,  the  Lady  was  first 
cousin  to  Mrs.  Midas  Goldenrod.  She  had 
been  here  in  her  carriage  to  call  upon  her, 
—  not  very  often.  —  Were  her  rich  relations 
kind  and  helpful  to  her  ?  —  Well,  —  yes  ;  at 
least  they  made  her  presents  now  and  then. 
Three  or  four  years  ago  they  sent  her  a  sil 
ver  waiter,  and  every  Christmas  they  sent 
her  a  boquet,  —  it  must  cost  as  much  as  five 
dollars,  the  Landlady  thought. 

—  And  how  did  the  Lady  receive  these 
valuable  and  useful  gifts  ? 

—  Every  Christmas  she  got  out  the  silver 
waiter  and  borrowed    a  glass  tumbler   and 
filled  it  with  water,  and  put  the  boquet  in  it 
and  set  it  on  the   waiter.     It   smelt   sweet 
enough  and  looked  pretty  for  a  day  or  two, 
but  the  Landlady  thought  it  would  n't  have 
hurt  'em  if  they  'd  sent  a  piece  of  goods  for 
a  dress,  or  at  least  a  pocket-handkercher  or 
two,  or  something  or  other  that  she  could  'a' 
made   some   kind   of  use  of ;   but   beggars 
must  n't  be  choosers ;   not  that   she  was   a 
beggar,  for  she'd  sooner  die  than  do  that 
if   she  was  in  want  of   a  meal  of  victuals. 
There  was  a  lady  I  remember,  and  she  had 
a  little  boy  and  she  was  a  widow,  and  after 
she'd  buried  her  husband  she  was  dreadful 
poor,  and  she  was  ashamed  to  let  her  little 


80  THE  POET  AT 

boy  go  out  in  his  old  shoes,  and  copper-toed 
shoes  they  was  too,  because  his  poor  little 
ten  —  toes  —  was  a  coming  out  of  'em  ;  and 
what  do  you  think  my  husband's  rich  uncle, 
—  well,  there  now,  it  was  me  and  my  little 
Benjamin,  as  he  was  then,  there  's  no  use  in 
hiding  of  it,  —  and  what  do  you  think  my 
husband's  uncle  sent  me  but  a  plaster  of  Paris 
image  of  a  young  woman,  that  was,  — well, 
her  appearance  wasn't  respectable,  and  I 
had  to  take  and  wrap  her  up  in  a  towel  and 
poke  her  right  into  my  closet,  and  there  she 
stayed  till  she  got  her  head  broke  and 
served  her  right,  for  she  was  n't  fit  to  show 
folks.  You  needn't  say  anything  about 
what  I  told  you,  but  the  fact  is  I  was  des 
perate  poor  before  I  began  to  support  myself 
taking  boarders,  and  a  lone  woman  without 
her  —  her  — 

The  sentence  plunged  into  the  gulf  of  her 
great  remembered  sorrow,  and  was  lost  to 
the  records  of  humanity. 

-  Presently  she  continued  in  answer  to 
my  questions  :  The  Lady  was  not  very  soci 
able;  kept  mostly  to  herself.  The  Young 
Girl  (our  Scheherezade)  used  to  visit  her 
sometimes,  and  they  seemed  to  like  each 
other,  but  the  Young  Girl  had  not  many 
spare  hours  for  visiting.  Tho  Lady  never 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  81 

found  fault,  but  she  was  very  nice  in  her 
tastes,  and  kept  everything  about  her  look 
ing  as  neat  and  pleasant  as  she  could. 

—  What  did  she  do  ?  —  Why,  she  read, 
and  she  drew  pictures,  and  she  did  needle 
work  patterns,  and  played  on  an  old  harp 
she  had ;  the  gilt  was  mostly  off,  but  it 
sounded  very  sweet,  and  she  sung  to  it  some 
times,  those  old  songs  that  used  to  be  in 
fashion  twenty  or  thirty  years  ago,  with 
words  to  'em  that  folks  could  understand. 

Did  she  do  anything  to  help  support  her 
self  ?  —  The  Landlady  could  n't  say  she  did, 
but  she  thought  there  was  rich  people 
enough  that  ought  to  buy  the  flowers  and 
things  she  worked  and  painted. 

All  this  points  to  the  fact  that  she  was 
bred  to  be  an  ornamental  rather  than  what 
is  called  a  useful  member  of  society.  This 
is  all  very  well  so  long  as  fortune  favors 
those  who  are  chosen  to  be  the  ornamental 
personages ;  but  if  the  golden  tide  recedes 
and  leaves  them  stranded,  they  are  more  to 
be  pitied  than  almost  any  other  class.  "  I 
cannot  dig,  to  beg  I  am  ashamed." 

I  think  it  is  unpopular  in  this  country  to 
talk  much  about  gentlemen  and  gentle 
women.  People  are  touchy  about  social  dis 
tinctions,  which  no  doubt  are  often  invidious 


82  THE  POET  AT 

and  quite  arbitrary  and  accidental,  but 
which  it  is  impossible  to  avoid  recognizing 
as  facts  of  natural  history.  Society  strati 
fies  itself  everywhere,  and  the  stratum  which 
is  generally  recognized  as  the  uppermost 
will  be  apt  to  have  the  advantage  in  easy 
grace  of  manner  and  in  unassuming  confi 
dence,  and  consequently  be  more  agreeable 
in  the  superficial  relations  of  life.  To  com 
pare  these  advantages  with  the  virtues  and 
utilities  would  be  foolish.  Much  of  the 
noblest  work  in  life  is  done  by  ill-dressed, 
awkward,  ungainly  persons ;  but  that  is  no 
more  reason  for  undervaluing  good  manners 
and  what  we  call  high-breeding,  than  the 
fact  that  the  best  part  of  the  sturdy  labor 
of  the  world  is  done  by  men  with  exception 
able  hands  is  to  be  urged  against  the  use  of 
Brown  Windsor  as  a  preliminary  to  appear 
ance  in  cultivated  society. 

I  mean  to  stand  up  for  this  poor  lady, 
whose  usefulness  in  the  world  is  apparently 
problematical.  She  seems  to  me  like  a  pic 
ture  which  has  fallen  from  its  gilded  frame 
and  lies,  face  downward,  on  the  dusty  floor. 
The  picture  never  was  as  needful  as  a  win 
dow  or  a  door,  but  it  was  pleasant  to  see  it 
in  its  place,  and  it  would  be  pleasant  to  see 
it  there  again,  and  I,  for  one,  should  be 


THE  BBEAKFAST-TABLE.  83 

thankful  to  have  the  Lady  restored  by  some 
turn  of  fortune  to  the  position  from  which 
she  has  been  so  cruelly  cast  down. 

- 1  have  asked  the  Landlady  about  the 
young  man  sitting  near  her,  the  same  who 
attracted  my  attention  the  other  day  while 
I  was  talking,  as  I  mentioned.  He  passes 
most  of  his  time  in  a  private  observatory,  it 
appears  ;  a  watcher  of  the  stars.  That  I 
suppose  gives  the  peculiar  look  to  his  lus 
trous  eyes.  The  Master  knows  him  and  was 
pleased  to  tell  me  something  about  him. 

You  call  yourself  a  Poet,  —  he  said, — 
and  we  call  you  so,  too,  and  so  you  are  ;  I 
read  your  verses  and  like  'em.  But  that 
young  man  lives  in  a  world  beyond  the  im 
agination  of  poets,  let  me  tell  you.  The 
daily  home  of  his  thought  is  in  illimitable 
space,  hovering  between  the  two  eternities. 
In  his  contemplations  the  divisions  of  time 
run  together,  as  in  the  thought  of  his  Maker. 
With  him  also,  —  I  say  it  not  profanely,  — 
one  day  is  as  a  thousand  years  and  a  thou 
sand  years  as  one  day. 

This  account  of  his  occupation  increased 
the  interest  his  look  had  excited  in  me,  and 
I  have  observed  him  more  particularly  and 
found  out  more  about  him.  Sometimes,  af- 


84  THE  POET  AT 

ter  a  long  night's  watching,  he  looks  so  pale 
and  worn,  that  one  would  think  the  cold 
moonlight  had  stricken  him  with  some  ma 
lign  effluence,  such  as  it  is  fabled  to  send 
upon  those  who  sleep  in  it.  At  such  times 
he  seems  more  like  one  who  has  come  from 
a  planet  farther  away  from  the  sun  than  our 
earth,  than  like  one  of  us  terrestrial  crea 
tures.  His  home  is  truly  in  the  heavens, 
and  he  practises  an  asceticism  in  the  cause 
of  science  almost  comparable  to  that  of  Saint 
Simeon  Stylites.  Yet  they  tell  me  he  might 
live  in  luxury  if  he  spent  on  himself  what 
he  spends  on  science.  His  knowledge  is  of 
that  strange,  remote  character,  that  it  seems 
sometimes  almost  superhuman.  He  knows 
the  ridges  and  chasms  of  the  moon  as  a  sur 
veyor  knows  a  garden-plot  he  has  measured. 
He  watches  the  snows  that  gather  around 
the  poles  of  Mars ;  he  is  on  the  lookout  for 
the  expected  comet  at  the  moment  when  its 
faint  stain  of  diffused  light  first  shows  it 
self  ;  he  analyzes  the  ray  that  comes  from 
the  sun's  photosphere  ;  he  measures  the  rings 
of  Saturn  ;  he  counts  his  asteroids  to  see 
that  none  are  missing,  as  the  shepherd 
counts  the  sheep  in  his  flock.  A  strange 
unearthly  being  ;  lonely,  dwelling  far  apart 
from  the  thoughts  and  cares  of  the  planet 


THE  BEEAKFAST-TABLE.  85 

on  which  he  lives,  —  an  enthusiast  who  gives 
his  life  to  knowledge  ;  a  student  of  antiquity, 
to  whom  the  records  of  the  geologist  are 
modern  pages  in  the  great  volume  of  being, 
and  the  pyramids  a  memorandum  of  yester 
day,  as  the  eclipse  or  occultation  that  is  to 
take  place  thousands  of  years  hence  is  an 
event  of  to-morrow  in  the  diary  without  be 
ginning  and  without  end  where  he  enters 
the  aspect  of  the  passing  moment  as  it  is 
read  on  the  celestial  dial. 

In  very  marked  contrast  with  this  young 
man  is  the  something  more  than  middle-aged 
Register  of  Deeds,  a  rusty,  sallow,  smoke- 
dried  looking  personage,  who  belongs  to 
this  earth  as  exclusively  as  the  other  belongs 
to  the  firmament.  His  movements  are  as 
mechanical  as  those  of  a  pendulum,  —  to  the 
office,  where  he  changes  his  coat  and  plunges 
into  messuages  and  building-lots  ;  then,  after 
changing  his  coat  again,  back  to  our  table, 
and  so,  day  by  day,  the  dust  of  years  gradu 
ally  gathering  around  him  as  it  does  on  the 
old  folios  that  fill  the  shelves  all  round  the 
great  cemetery  of  past  transactions  of  which 
he  is  the  sexton. 

Of  the  Salesman  who  sits  next  him,  noth- 


86  THE  POET  AT 

ing  need  be  said  except  that  he  is  good-look 
ing,  rosy,  well-dressed,  and  of  very  polite 
manners,  only  a  little  more  brisk  than  the 
approved  style  of  carriage  permits,  —  as  one 
in  the  habit  of  springing  with  a  certain 
alacrity  at  the  call  of  a  customer. 

You  would  like  to  see,  I  don't  doubt,  how 
we  sit  at  the  table,  and  I  will  help  you  by 
means  of  a  diagram  which  shows  the  present 
arrangement  of  our  seats. 

The        The  Young  (iirl    The  Master  The  The  The  Man 

Lady.     (Scheherezade).      of  Arts.  Poet.  Scarabec.       of  Letters(?). 


0 

0 

0 

0 

o         o 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0            0 

Our  young  Scheherezade  varies  her  prose 
stories  now  and  then,  as  I  told  you,  with 
compositions  in  verse,  one  or  two  of  which 
she  has  let  me  look  over.  Here  is  one  of 
them,  which  she  allowed  me  to  copy.  It  is 
from  a  story  of  hers,  "  The  Sun-  Worshipper's 
Daughter,"  which  you  may  find  in  the  peri 
odical  before  mentioned,  to  which  she  is  a 
contributor,  if  you  can  lay  your  hand  upon 
a  file  of  it.  I  think  our  Scheherezade  has 
never  had  a  lover  in  human  shape,  or  she 


THE  BEE AKF AST-TABLE.  87 

would  not  play  so  lightly  with  the  firebrands 
of  the  great  passion. 


FANTASIA. 

Kiss  mine  eyelids,  beauteous  Morn, 
Blushing  into  life  new-born  ! 
Lend  me  violets  for  my  hair, 
And  thy  russet  robe  to  wear, 
And  thy  ring  of  rosiest  hue 
Set  in  drops  of  diamond  dew ! 

Kiss  my  cheek,  thou  noontide  ray, 
From  my  Love  so  far  away ! 
Let  thy  splendor  streaming  down 
Turn  its  pallid  lilies  brown, 
Till  its  darkening  shades  reveal 
Where  his  passion  pressed  its  seal ! 

Kiss  my  lips,  thou  Lord  of  light, 
Kiss  my  lips  a  soft  good  night ! 
Westward  sinks  thy  golden  car  ; 
Leave  me  but  the  evening  star, 
And  my  solace  that  shall  be, 
Borrowing  all  its  light  from  thee ! 


88  THE  POET  AT 

in. 

The  old  Master  was  talking  about  a  con 
cert  he  had  been  to  hear. 

—  I  don't  like  your  chopped  music  any 
way.  That  woman  —  she  had  more  sense  in 
her  little  finger  than  forty  medical  societies 
—  Florence  Nightingale  —  says  that  the 
music  you  pour  out  is  good  for  sick  folks, 
and  the  music  you  pound  out  isn't.  Not 
that  exactly,  but  something  like  it.  I  have 
been  to  hear  some  music-pounding.  It  was 
a  young  woman,  with  as  many  white  muslin 
flounces  round  her  as  the  planet  Saturn  has 
rings,  that  did  it.  She  gave  the  music-stool 
a  twirl  or  two  and  fluffed  down  on  to  it  like 
a  whirl  of  soap-suds  in  a  hand-basin.  Then 
she  pushed  up  her  cuffs  as  if  she  was  going 
to  fight  for  the  champion's  belt.  Then  she 
worked  her  wrists  and  her  hands,  to  limber 
'em,  I  suppose,  and  spread  out  her  fingers 
till  they  looked  as  though  they  would  pretty 
much  cover  the  key-board,  from  the  growling 
end  to  the  little  squeaky  one.  Then  those 
two  hands  of  hers  made  a  jump  at  the  keys 
as  if  they  were  a  couple  of  tigers  coining 
down  on  a  flock  of  black  and  white  sheep, 
and  the  piano  gave  a  great  howl  as  if  its  tail 
had  been  trod  on.  Dead  stop,  —  so  still  you 


THE  BEEAKF AST-TABLE.  89 

could  hear  your  hair  growing.  Then  another 
jump,  and  another  howl,  as  if  the  piano  had 
two  tails  and  you  had  trod  on  both  of  'em 
at  once,  and  then  a  grand  clatter  and  scram 
ble  and  string  of  jumps,  up  and  down,  back 
and  forward,  one  hand  over  the  other,  like  a 
stampede  of  rats  and  mice  more  than  like 
anything  I  call  music.  I  like  to  hear  a 
woman  sing,  and  I  like  to  hear  a  fiddle  sing, 
but  these  noises  they  hammer  out  of  their 
wood  and  ivory  anvils  —  don't  talk  to  me,  I 
know  the  difference  between  a  bullfrog  and 
a  woodthrush  and  — 

Pop !  went  a  small  piece  of  artillery  such 
as  is  made  of  a  stick  of  elder  and  carries  a 
pellet  of  very  moderate  consistency.  That 
Boy  was  in  his  seat  and  looking  demure 
enough,  but  there  could  be  no  question  that 
he  was  the  artillery-man  who  had  discharged 
the  missile.  The  aim  was  not  a  bad  one,  for 
it  took  the  Master  full  in  the  forehead,  and 
had  the  effect  of  checking  the  flow  of  his 
eloquence.  How  the  little  monkey  had 
learned  to  time  his  interruptions  I  do  not 
know,  but  I  have  observed  more  than  once 
before  this,  that  the  popgun  would  go  off 
just  at  the  moment  when  some  one  of  the 
company  was  getting  too  energetic  or  pro 
lix.  The  Boy  is  n't  old  enough  to  judge  for 


90  THE  POET  AT 

himself  when  to  intervene  to  change  the  or 
der  of  conversation  ;  no,  of  course  he  is  n't. 
Somebody  must  give  him  a  hint.  Somebody. 
—  Who  is  it  ?  I  suspect  Dr.  B.  Franklin. 
He  looks  too  knowing.  There  is  certainly  a 
trick  somewhere.  Why,  a  day  or  two  ago  I 
was  myself  discoursing,  with  considerable 
effect,  as  I  thought,  on  some  of  the  new  as 
pects  of  humanity,  when  I  was  struck  full  on 
the  cheek  by  one  of  these  little  pellets,  and 
there  was  such  a  confounded  laugh  that  I 
had  to  wind  up  and  leave  off  with  a  preposi 
tion  instead  of  a  good  mouthful  of  polysyl 
lables.  I  have  watched  our  young  Doctor, 
however,  and  have  been  entirely  unable  to 
detect  any  signs  of  communication  between 
him  and  this  audacious  child,  who  is  like  to 
become  a  power  among  us,  for  that  popgun 
is  fatal  to  any  talker  who  is  hit  by  its  pellet. 
I  have  suspected  a  foot  under  the  table  as 
the  prompter,  but  I  have  been  unable  to  de 
tect  the  slightest  movement  or  look  as  if  he 
were  making  one,  on  the  part  of  Dr.  Ben 
jamin  Franklin.  I  cannot  help  thinking  of 
the  flappers  in  Swift's  Laputa,  only  they 
gave  one  a  hint  when  to  speak  and  another 
a  hint  to  listen,  whereas  the  popgun  says 
unmistakably,  "  Shut  up  !  " 

—  I  should  be  sorry  to  lose  my  confidence 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  91 

in  Dr.  B.  Franklin,  who  seems  very  much 
devoted  to  his  business,  and  whom  I  mean  to 
consult  about  some  small  symptoms  I  have 
had  lately.  Perhaps  it  is  coming  to  a  new 
boarding-house.  The  young  people  who 
come  into  Paris  from  the  provinces  are  very 
apt  —  so  I  have  been  told  by  one  that 
knows  —  to  have  an  attack  of  typhoid  fever 
a  few  weeks  or  months  after  their  arrivaL 
I  have  not  been  long  enough  at  this  table 
to  get  well  acclimated  ;  perhaps  that  is  it. 
Boarding-House  Fever.  Something  like 
horse-ail,  very  likely,  —  horses  get  it,  you 
know,  when  they  are  brought  to  city  stables. 
A  little  "  off  my  feed,"  as  Hiram  Woodruff 
would  say.  A  queer  discoloration  about  my 
forehead.  Query,  a  bump?  Cannot  re 
member  any.  Might  have  got  it  against 
bedpost  or  something  while  asleep.  Very 
unpleasant  to  look  so.  I  wonder  how  my 
portrait  would  look,  if  anybody  should  take 
it  now !  I  hope  not  quite  so  badly  as  one  I 
saw  the  other  day,  which  I  took  for  the  end 
man  of  the  Ethiopian  Serenaders,  or  some 
traveller  who  had  been  exploring  the  sources 
of  the  Niger,  until  I  read  the  name  at  the 
bottom  and  found  it  was  a  face  I  knew  as 
well  as  my  own. 

I  must  consult  somebody,  and  it  is  noth- 


92  THE  POET  AT 

ing  more  than  fair  to  give  our  young  Doctor 
a  chance.  Here  goes  for  Dr.  Benjamin 
Franklin. 

The  young  Doctor  has  a  very  small  office 
and  a  very  large  sign,  with  a  transparency 
at  night  big  enough  for  an  oyster-shop. 
These  young  doctors  are  particularly  strong, 
as  I  understand,  on  what  they  call  diagnosis, 
—  an  excellent  branch  of  the  healing  art, 
full  of  satisfaction  to  the  curious  practi 
tioner,  who  likes  to  give  the  right  Latin 
name  to  one's  complaint ;  not  quite  so  satis 
factory  to  the  patient,  as  it  is  not  so  very 
much  pleasanter  to  be  bitten  by  a  dog  with 
a  collar  round  his  neck  telling  you  that  he 
is  called  Snap  or  Teaser,  than  by  a  dog 
without  a  collar.  Sometimes,  in  fact,  one 
would  a  little  rather  not  know  the  exact 
name  of  his  complaint,  as  if  he  does  he  is 
pretty  sure  to  look  it  out  in  a  medical  dic 
tionary,  and  then  if  he  reads,  This  terrible 
disease  is  attended  with  vast  suffering  and 
is  inevitably  mortal,  or  any  such  statement, 
it  is  apt  to  affect  him  unpleasantly. 

I  confess  to  a  little  shakiness  when  I 
knocked  at  Dr.  Benjamin's  office  door. 
4i  Come  in  !  "  exclaimed  Dr.  B.  F.  in  tones 
that  sounded  ominous  and  sepulchral.  And 
I  went  in. 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  93 

I  don't  believe  the  chambers  of  the  In 
quisition  ever  presented  a  more  alarming  ar 
ray  of  implements  for  extracting  a  confes 
sion,  than  our  young  Doctor's  office  did  of 
instruments  to  make  nature  tell  what  was 
the  matter  with  a  poor  body. 

There  were  Ophthalmoscopes  and  Rhino- 
scopes  and  Otoscopes  and  Laryngoscopes 
and  Stethoscopes  ;  and  Thermometers  and 
Spirometers  and  Dynamometers  and  Sphyg- 
mometers  and  Pleximeters  ;  and  Probes  and 
Probangs  and  all  sorts  of  frightful  inquisi 
tive  exploring  contrivances  ;  and  scales  to 
weigh  you  in,  and  tests  and  balances  and 
pumps  and  electro-magnets  and  magneto- 
electric  machines  ;  in  short,  apparatus  for 
doing  everything  but  turn  you  inside  out. 

Dr.  Benjamin  set  me  down  before  his  one 
window  and  began  looking  at  me  with  such 
a  superhuman  air  of  sagacity,  that  I  felt 
like  one  of  those  open-breasted  clocks  which 
make  no  secret  of  their  inside  arrangements, 
and  almost  thought  he  could  see  through  me 
as  one  sees  through  a  shrimp  or  a  jelly-fish. 
First  he  looked  at  the  place  inculpated, 
which  had  a  sort  of  greenish-brown  color, 
with  his  naked  eyes,  with  much  corrugation 
of  forehead  and  fearful  concentration  of  at 
tention  ;  then  through  a  pocket-glass  which 


94  THE  POET  AT 

he  carried.  Then  he  drew  back  a  space,  for 
a  perspective  view.  Then  he  made  me  put 
out  my  tongue  and  laid  a  slip  of  blue  paper 
on  it,  which  turned  red  and  scared  me  a  lit 
tle.  Next  he  took  my  wrist ;  but  instead  of 
counting  my  pulse  in  the  old-fashioned  way, 
he  fastened  a  machine  to  it  that  marked  all 
the  beats  on  a  sheet  of  paper,  —  for  all  the 
world  like  a  scale  of  the  heights  of  moun 
tains,  say  from  Mount  Tom  up  to  Chimbo- 
razo  and  then  down  again,  and  up  again, 
and  so  on.  In  the  mean  time  he  asked  me 
all  sorts  of  questions  about  myself  and  all 
my  relatives,  whether  we  had  been  subject 
to  this  and  that  malady,  until  I  felt  as 
if  we  must  some  of  us  have  had  more  or 
less  of  them,  and  could  not  feel  quite  sure 
whether  Elephantiasis  and  Beriberi  and  Pro 
gressive  Locomotor  Ataxy  did  not  run  in  the 
family. 

After  all  this  overhauling  of  myself  and 
my  history,  he  paused  and  looked  puzzled. 
Something  was  suggested  about  what  he 
called  an  "  exploratory  puncture."  This  I 
at  once  declined,  with  thanks.  Suddenly  a 
thought  struck  him.  He  looked  still  more 
closely  at  the  discoloration  I  have  spoken  of. 
—  Looks  like  —  I  declare  it  reminds  me 
of  —  very  rare  !  very  curious  !  It  would  be 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  95 

strange  if  my  first  case  —  of  this  kind  — 
should  be  one  of  our  boarders  ! 

What  kind  of  a  case  do  you  call  it  ?  —  I 
said,  with  a  sort  of  feeling  that  he  could  in 
flict  a  severe  or  a  light  malady  on  me,  as  if 
he  were  a  judge  passing  sentence. 

—  The  color  reminds  me,  —  said  Dr.  B. 
Franklin,  —  of  what  I  have  seen  in  a  case 
of  Addison's  Disease,  Morbus  Addisonii. 

—  But  my  habits  are   quite  regular,  —  I 
said ;    for    I    remembered    that   the    distin 
guished  essayist  was  too  fond  of  his  brandy 
and  water,  and  I  confess  that  the  thought 
was    not  pleasant   to  me    of   following  Dr. 
Johnson's  advice,  with  the  slight  variation 
of  giving  my  days  and  my  nights  to  trying 
on  the  favorite  maladies  of  Addison. 

—  Temperance  people  are  subject  to  it! 
—  exclaimed   Dr.    Benjamin,  almost   exult- 
ingly,  I  thought. 

—  But  I  had  the  impression  that  the  au 
thor  of  the    Spectator  was  afflicted  with  a 
dropsy,  or    some  such  inflated    malady,  to 
which  persons    of    sedentary  and    bibacious 
habits    are    liable.      [A   literary   swell,  —  I. 
thought  to  myself,  but  I  did  not  say  it.     1 
felt  too  serious.] 

—  The  author  of  the  Spectator !  —  cried 
out  Dr.  Benjamin,  —  1  mean  the  celebrated 


96  THE  POET  AT 

Dr.  Addison,  inventor,  I  would  say  discov 
erer,  of  the  wonderful  new  disease  called 
after  him. 

—  And  what  may  this  valuable  invention 
or  discovery  consist  in  ?  —  I  asked,  for  I  was 
curious  to  know  the  nature  of  the  gift  which 
this    benefactor    of   the    race  had  bestowed 
upon  us. 

—  A  most  interesting  affection,  and  rare, 
too.    Allow  me  to  look  closely  at  that  discol 
oration    once  more    for  a    moment.      Cutis 
cenca,  bronze  skin,  they  call  it  sometimes  — 
extraordinary  pigmentation  —  a  little   more 
to  the  light,  if  you  please  —  ah !  now  I  get 
the  bronze  coloring  admirably,  beautifully ! 
Would  you  have  any  objection  to  showing 
your  case  to  the  Societies    of    Medical  Im 
provement  and  Medical  Observation  ? 

[ —  My  case  !  O  dear !  ]  May  I  ask  if  any 
vital  organ  is  commonly  involved  in  this  in 
teresting  complaint  ?  —  I  said,  faintly. 

-  Well,  sir,  —  the  young  Doctor  replied, 
—  there  is  an  organ  which  is  —  sometimes 
—  a  little  —  touched,  I  may  say  ;  a  very 
curious  and  —  ingenious  little  organ  or  pair 
of  organs.  Did  you  ever  hear  of  the  Cap- 
sulce  Suprarenales  ? 

—  No,  —  said  I,  —  is  it  a  mortal  com 
plaint  ?  —  I  ought  to  have  known  better 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  97 

than  to  ask  such  a  question,  but  I  was  get 
ting  nervous  and  thinking  about  all  sorts  of 
horrid  maladies  people  are  liable  to,  with 
horrid  names  to  match. 

—  It  is  n't  a  complaint,  —  I  mean  they  are 
not  a  complaint,  —  they  are  two    small  or 
gans,  as  I  said,  inside    of  you,  and  nobody 
knows  what  is  the  use  of  them.     The  most 
curious  thing  is  that  when  anything  is  the 
matter  with  them  you  turn  of  the  color  of 
bronze.     After  all,  I  did  n't  mean  to  say  I 
believed  it  was  Morbus  Addisonii  ;    I  only 
thought  of  that  when  I  saw  the  discolora 
tion. 

So  he  gave  me  a  recipe,  which  I  took  care 
to  put  where  it  could  do  no  hurt  to  anybodv, 
and  I  paid  him  his  fee  (which  he  took  with 
the  air  of  a  man  in  the  receipt  of  a  great 
income)  and  said  Good-morning. 

—  What  in  the  name  of  a  thousand  dia- 
blos  is  the  reason  these  confounded  doctors 
will  mention   their  guesses  about  "  a  case," 
as  they  call  it,  and  all  its  conceivable  possi 
bilities,  out  loud  before  their   patients  ?     I 
don't  suppose  there  is  anything  in  all  this 
nonsense  about  "  Addison's  Disease,"  but  I 
wish  he  had  n't  spoken  of  that  very  interest 
ing  ailment,  and  I  should  feel  a  little  easier  if 


98  THE  POET  AT 

that  discoloration  would  leave  my  forehead. 
I  will  ask  the  Landlady  about  it,  —  these  old 
women  often  know  more  than  the  young 
doctors  just  come  home  with  long  names  for 
everything  they  don't  know  how  to  cure. 
But  the  name  of  this  complaint  sets  me 
thinking.  Bronzed  skin  !  What  an  odd 
idea !  Wonder  if  it  spreads  all  over  one. 
That  would  be  picturesque  and  pleasant,  now, 
would  n't  it  ?  To  be  made  a  living  statue 
of,  —  nothing  to  do  but  strike  an  attitude. 
Arm  up  —  so  —  like  the  one  in  the  Garden. 
John  of  Bologna's  Mercury  —  thus  —  on 
one  foot.  Needy  knife-grinder  in  the  Trib 
une  at  Florence.  No,  not  "  needy,"  come  to 
think  of  it.  Marcus  Aurelius  on  horseback. 
Query.  Are  horses  subject  to  the  Morbus 
Addisonii  ?  Advertise  for  a  bronzed  living 
horse  —  Lyceum  invitations  and  engage 
ments  —  bronze  versus  brass.  —  What 's  the 
use  in  being  frightened  ?  Bet  it  was  a  bump. 
Pretty  certain  I  bumped  my  forehead  against 
something.  Never  heard  of  a  bronzed  man 
before.  Have  seen  white  men,  black  men, 
red  men,  yellow  men,  two  or  three  blue  men, 
stained  with  doctor's  stuff ;  some  green  ones, 
-  from  the  country  ;  but  never  a  bronzed 
man.  Poh,  poh !  Sure  it  was  a  bump.  Ask 
Landlady  to  look  at  it. 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  99 

—  Landlady  did  look  at  it.     Said  it  was 
a  bump,  and  no  mistake.     Kecommended  a 
piece  of   brown   paper   dipped   in   vinegar. 
Made  the  house  smell  as  if  it  were  in  quar 
antine  for  the  plague  from  Smyrna,  but  dis 
coloration  soon  disappeared,  —  so  I  did  not 
become  a  bronzed  man    after  all,  —  hope  I 
never   shall   while   I  am   alive.     Should  n't 
mind  being  done  in  bronze  after  I  was  dead. 
On  second  thoughts  not  so  clear  about  it,  re 
membering  how  some  of  them  look  that  we 
have  got  stuck  up  in  public ;    think  I  had 
rather   go    down    to  posterity  in  an  Ethio 
pian  Minstrel  portrait,  like  our  friend's  the 
other  day. 

—  You  were    kind    enough  to  say,  I  re 
marked  to  the  Master,   that   you    read  my 
poems  and  liked  them.    Perhaps  you  would 
be  good  enough  to   tell  me  what  it  is  you 
like  about   them? 

The  Master  harpooned  a  breakfast-roll 
and  held  it  up  before  me.  —  Will  you  tell 
me,  —  he  said,  —  why  you  like  that  break 
fast-roll  ?  —  I  suppose  he  thought  that  would 
stop  my  mouth  in  two  senses.  But  he  was 
mistaken. 

—  To  be  sure    I  will,  —  said  I.  —  First, 
I  like    its    mechanical    consistency ;    brittle 


100  THE  POET  AT 

externally,  —  that  is  for  the  teeth,  which 
want  resistance  to  be  overcome;  soft, 
spongy,  well  tempered  and  flavored  inter 
nally,  —  that  is  for  the  organ  of  taste ; 
wholesome,  nutritious,  —  that  is  for  the  in 
ternal  surfaces  and  the  system  generally. 

—  Good  !  —  said  the  Master,  and  laughed 
a  hearty  terrestrial  laugh. 

I  hope  he  will  carry  that  faculty  of  an 
honest  laugh  with  him  wherever  he  goes, 
-why  shouldn't  he?  The  "order  of 
things,"  as  he  calls  it,  from  which  hilarity 
was  excluded,  would  be  crippled  and  one 
sided  enough.  I  don't  believe  the  human 
gamut  will  be  cheated  of  a  single  note 
after  men  have  done  breathing  this  fatal 
atmospheric  mixture  and  die  into  the  ether 
of  immortality! 

I  did  n't  say  all  that ;  if  I  had  said  it,  it 
would  have  brought  a  pellet  from  the  pop 
gun,  I  feel  quite  certain. 

The  Master  went  on  after  he  had  had  out 
his  laugh.  —  There  is  one  thing  I  am  His 
Imperial  Majesty  about,  and  that  is  my 
likes  and  dislikes.  What  if  I  do  like  your 
verses,  —  you  can't  help  yourself.  I  don't 
doubt  somebody  or  other  hates  'em  and 
hates  you  and  everything  you  do,  or  ever 
did,  or  ever  can  do.  He  is  all  ri«'ht ;  there 


THE  BE EAKF AST-TABLE.  101 

is  nothing  you  or  I  like  that  somebody  does 
n't  hate.  Was  there  ever  anyijilng;  \yl}olie- 
some  that  was  not  poison  to  somebody  ?  If 
yon  hate  honey  or  cheese,  or  the  products  of 
the  dairy,  —  I  know  a  family  a  good  many 
of  whose  members  can't  touch  milk,  butter, 
cheese,  and  the  like,  —  why,  say  so,  but 
don't  find  fault  with  the  bees  and  the  cows. 
Some  are  afraid  of  roses,  and  I  have  known, 
those  who  thought  a  pond-lily  a  disagreeable 
neighbor.  That  Boy  will  give  you  the  met 
aphysics  of  likes  and  dislikes.  Look  here, 
—  you  young  philosopher  over  there,  —  do 
you  like  candy? 

That  Boy.  —  You  bet !  Give  me  a  stick 
and  see  if  I  don't. 

And  can  you  tell  me  why  you  like  candy  ? 

That  Boy.  —  Because  I  do. 

—  There,  now,  that  is  the  whole  matter  in 
a  nutshell.  Why  do  your  teeth  like  crack 
ling  crust,  and  your  organs  of  taste  like 
spongy  crumb,  and  your  digestive  contriv 
ances  take  kindly  to  bread  rather  than  toad 
stools  — 

That  Boy  (thinking  he  was  still  being 
catechised).  —  Because  they  do. 

Whereupon  the  Landlady  said,  Sh !  and 
the  Young  Girl  laughed,  and  the  Lady 
smiled  ;  and  Dr.  Ben.  Franklin  kicked  him, 


102  THE  POET  AT 

moderately,  under  the  table,  and  the  As- 
tronorfler  looked  up  at  the  ceiling  to  see 
what  had  happened,  and  the  member  of  the 
Haouse  cried,  Order  !  Order  !  and  the  Sales 
man  said,  Shut  up,  cash  boy  !  and  the  rest  of 
the  boarders  kept  on  feeding  ;  except  the 
Master,  who  looked  very  hard  but  half  ap 
provingly  at  the  sniall  intruder,  who  had 
come  about  as  nearly  right  as  most  profess 
ors  would  have  done. 

—  You  poets,  —  the  Master  said  after  this 
excitement  had  calmed    down,  —  you  poets 
have  one  thing  about  you  that  is  odd.     You 
talk  about  everything  as  if  you  knew  more 
about  it  than  the  people  whose  business  it 
is  to  know  all  about  it.     I  suppose  you  do 
a  little  of   what  we   teachers   used   to-  call 
"  cramming  "now  and  then  ? 

—  If  you  like  your  breakfast  you  must  n't 
ask  the  cook  too  many  questions,  —  I    an 
swered. 

—  O,  come  now,  don't  be  afraid  of  letting 
out  your  secrets.     I  have  a  notion  I  can  tell 
a  poet  that  gets  himself   up  just  as  I  can 
tell  a  make-believe  old  man  on  the  stage  by 
the  line  where  the  gray  skull-cap  joins  the 
smooth  forehead  of  the  young  fellow  of  sev 
enty.     You  '11  confess  to  a  rhyming  diction 
ary  anyhow,  won't  you  ? 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  103 

—  I  would  as  lief  use  that  as  any  other 
dictionary,  but  I  don't  want  it.  When  a 
word  comes  up  fit  to  end  a  line  with  I  can 
feel  all  the  rhymes  in  the  language  that  are 
fit  to  go  with  it  without  naming  them.  I 
have  tried  them  all  so  many  times,  I  know 
all  the  polygamous  words  and  all  the  monog 
amous  ones,  and  all  the  unmarrying  ones, 
-  the  whole  lot  that  have  no  mates,  —  as 
soon  as  I  hear  their  names  called.  Some 
times  I  run  over  a  string  of  rhymes,  but 
generally  speaking  it  is  strange  what  a  short 
list  it  is  of  those  that  are  good  for  anything. 
That  is  the  pitiful  side  of  all  rhymed  verse. 
Take  two  such  words  as  home  and  world. 
What  can  you  do  with  chrome  or  loam  or 
gnome  or  tome  ?  You  have  dome,  foam, 
and  roam,  and  not  much  more  to  use  in  your 
pome,  as  some  of  our  fellow-countrymen  call 
it.  As  for  world,  you  know  that  in  all 
human  probability  somebody  or  something 
will  be  hurled  into  it  or  out  of  it ;  its  clouds 
may  be  furled  or  its  grass  imp^arled  ;  possi 
bly  something  may  be  whirled,  or  curled,  or 
have  swirled,  —  one  of  Leigh  Hunt's  words, 
which  with  lush,  one  of  Keats's,  is  an  im 
portant  part  of  the  stock  in  trade  of  some 
dealers  in  rhyme. 

• —  And  how  much  do  you  versifiers  know 


104  THE  POET  AT 

of  all  those  arts  and  sciences  you  refer  to  as 
i£  you  were  as  familiar  with  them  as  a  cob 
bler  is  with  his  wax  and  lapstone  ? 

—  Enough  not  to  make  too  many  mis 
takes.  The  best  way  is  to  ask  some  expert 
before  one  risks  himself  very  far  in  illustra 
tions  from  a  branch  he  does  not  know  much 
about.  Suppose,  for  instance,  I  wanted  to 
use  the  double  star  to  illustrate  anything, 
say  the  relation  of  two  human  souls  to  each 
other,  what  would  I  do  ?  Why,  I  would 
ask  our  young  friend  there  to  let  me  look  at 
one  of  those  loving  celestial  pairs  through 
his  telescope,  and  I  don't  doubt  he  'd  let  me 
do  so,  and  tell  me  their  names  and  all  I 
wanted  to  know  about  them. 

—  I  should  be  most  happy  to  show  any 
of  the  double  stars  or  whatever  else  there 
might  be  to  see  in  the  heavens  to  any  of  our 
friends  at  this  table,  —  the  young  man  said, 
so  cordially  and  kindly  that  it  was  a  real  in 
vitation. 

—  Show  us  the  man  in  the  moon,  —  said 
That  Boy. 

—  I  should  so  like  to  see  a  double  star  ! 

—  said  Scheherezade,  with  a  very  pretty  air 
of  smiling  modesty. 

-  Will  you  go,  if  we  make  up  a  party  ? 

—  I  asked  the  Master. 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  105 

—  A  cold  in  the  head  lasts  me  from  three 
to  five    days,  —  answered   the    Master.  —  I 
am  not  so  very  fond  of  being  out  in  the  dew 
like  Nebuchadnezzar :  that  will  do  for  you 
young  folks. 

—  I  suppose  I  must  be  one  of  the  young 
folks,  —  not  so  young  as  our  Scheherezade, 
nor  so  old  as  the  Capitalist,  —  young  enough 
at  any  rate  to  want  to  be  of  the  party.     So 
we  agreed  that  on  some  fair  night  when  the 
Astronomer  should  tell  us  that  there  was  to 
be  a  fine  show  in  the  skies,  we  would  make 
up  a  party  and  go  to  the  Observatory.     I 
asked  the  Scarabee  whether  he  would   not 
like  to  make  one  of  us. 

—  Out  of   the  question,   sir,  out  of    the 
question.     I    am   altogether  too  much  occu 
pied  with  an  important  scientific  investiga 
tion  to  devote  any  considerable  part  of  an 
evening  to  star-gazing. 

—  O,  indeed,  —  said  I,  —  and  may  I  ven 
ture  ,to  ask  on  what  particular  point  you 
are  engaged  just  at  present? 

—  Certainly,  sir,  you  may.     It  is,  I  sup 
pose,  as  difficult  and  important  a  matter  to 
be  investigated  as  often  comes  before  a  stu 
dent  of  natural  history.     I  wish  to  settle  the 
point  once   for  all  whether   the  Pediculus 
Melittce  is  or  is  not  the  larva  of  Meloe, 


106  THE  POET  AT 

[ —  Now  is  n't  this  the  drollest  world  to 
live  in  that  one  could  imagine,  short  of 
being  in  a  fit  of  delirium  tremens?  Here 
is  a  fellow-creature  of  mine  and  yours  who 
is  asked  to  see  all  the  glories  of  the  fir 
mament  brought  close  to  him,  and  he  is 
too  busy  with  a  little  unmentionable  para 
site  that  infests  the  bristly  surface  of  a 
bee  to  spare  an  hour  or  two  of  a  single 
evening  for  the  splendors  of  the  universe  ! 
I  must  get  a  peep  through  that  micro 
scope  of  his  and  see  the  pcdiculus  which 
occupies  a  larger  space  in  his  mental  vision 
than  the  midnight  march  of  the  solar 
systems.  —  The  creature,  the  human  one,  I 
mean,  interests  me.] 

—  I  am  very  curious,  —  I  said,  —  about 
that  pediculus  melittce,  —  (just  as  if  I 
knew  a  good  deal  about  the  little  wretch 
and  wanted  to  know  more,  whereas  I  had 
never  heard  him  spoken  of  before,  to  my 
knowledge,)  —  could  you  let  me  have  a 
sight  of  him  in  your  microscope? 

-You  ought  to  have  seen  the  way  in 
which  the  poor  dried -up  little  Scarabee 
turned  towards  me.  His  eyes  took  on  a 
really  human  look,  and  I  almost  thought 
those  antennae-like  arms  of  his  would  have 
stretched  themselves  out  and  embraced  me 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  107 

I  don't  believe  any  of  the  boarders  had 
ever  shown  any  interest  in  him,  except  the 
little  monkey  of  a  Boy,  since  he  had  been 
in  the  house.  It  is  not  strange ;  he  had 
not  seemed  to  me  much  like  a  human  be 
ing,  until  all  at  once  I  touched  the  one 
point  where  his  vitality  had  concentrated 
itself,  and  he  stood  revealed  a  man  and  a 
brother. 

—  Come  in,  —  said  he,  —  come  in,  right 
after  breakfast,  and   you  shall  see  the  ani 
mal  that    has    convulsed    the  entomological 
world  with  questions    as  to  his  nature  and 
origin. 

—  So  I  went  into  the  Scarabee's  parlor, 
lodging-room,    study,    laboratory,    and     mu 
seum,  —  a  single  apartment  applied  to  these 
various  uses,  you  understand. 

—  I  wish  I  had  time  to  have  you   show 
me    all    your    treasures,  —  I    said,  —  but  I 
am  afraid  I  shall  hardly  be  able  to  do  more 
than  look  at  the  bee-parasite.     But  what  a 
superb  butterfly  you  have  in  that  case  ! 

—  O,  yes,  yes,  well  enough, — came  from 
South  America  with  the  beetle  there  ;    look 
at  him !     These  L&pidopt&ra   are  for  chil 
dren  to  play  with,  pretty  to  look  at,  so  some 
think.     Give  me  the    Coleoptera,   and  the 
kings   of   the    Coleoptera    are   the  beetles ! 


108  THE  POET  AT 

Lepidoptera  and  Neuroptera  for  little  folks ; 
Colcoptera  for  men,  sir  ! 

—  The  particular  beetle  he  showed  me  in 
the  case  with  the  magnificent  butterfly  was 
an  odious  black  wretch  that  one  wrould  say, 
Ugh!    at,  and   kick  out  of  his  path,  if   he 
did  not  serve  him  worse  than  that.     But  he 
looked  at  it  as  a  coin-collector  would  look  at 
a  Pescennius  Niger,  if  the  coins  of  that  Em 
peror  are  as  scarce  as  they  used  to  be  when  I 
was  collecting  half-penny  tokens  and  pine- 
tree  shillings  and  battered  bits   of   Roman 
brass  with  the  head  of  Gallienus  or  some 
such  old  fellow  on  them. 

—  A  beauty !  —  he  exclaimed,  —  and  the 
only  specimen  of  the  kind  in  this  country, 
to  the  best  of  my  belief.     A  unique,  sir,  and 
there  is  a  pleasure  in  exclusive  possession. 
Not  another  beetle  like  that  short  of  South 
America,  sir. 

—  I  was  glad  to  hear  that  there  were  no 
more  like  it  in  this  neighborhood,  the  present 
supply  of  cockroaches  answering  every  pur 
pose,  so  far  as  I  am  concerned,  that  such  an 
animal  as  this  would  be  likely  to  serve, 

—  Here  are  my  bee-parasites, — said  the 
Scarabee,   showing  me    a  box  full   of  glass 
slides,  each  with  a  specimen  ready  mounted 
for  the  microscope.     I  was  most  struck  with 


THE  BEE AKF AST-TABLE.  109 

one  little  beast  flattened  out  like  a  turtle, 
semi-transparent,  six-legged,  as  I  remember 
him,  and  every  leg  terminated  by  a  single 
claw  hooked  like  a  lion's  and  as  formidable 
for  the  size  of  the  creature  as  that  of  the 
royal  beast. 

-  Lives  on  a  bumblebee,  does  he  ?  —  I 
said.  —  That 's  the  way  I  call  it.  Bumble 
bee  or  bumblybee  and  huckleberry.  Hum- 
blebee  and  whortleberry  for  people  that  say 
Woos-ses-ter  and  Nor-wich. 

—  The  Scarabee  did  not  smile  ;    he  took 
no  interest  in  trivial  matters  like  this. 

—  [Lives  on  a  bumblebee.      When    you 
come  to  think  of  it,  he  must  lead  a  pleasant 
kind  of  life.     Sails  through  the  air  without 
the  trouble  of  flying.     Free  pass  everywhere 
that  the   bee  goes.     No  fear  of  being   dis 
lodged;   look  at  those  six  grappling-hooks. 
Helps  himself  to  such  juices  of  the  bee  as 
he  likes  best ;  the  bee  feeds  on  the  choicest 
vegetable  nectars,  and  he  feeds  on  the  bee. 
Lives  either  in  the  air  or  in  the  perfumed 
pavilion  of  the  fairest  and  sweetest  flowers. 
Think   what  tents   the   hollyhocks  and   the 
great  lilies  spread  for  him  !     And  wherever 
he  travels  a  band  of  music  goes  with  him,  for 
this  hum  which  wanders  by  us  is  doubtless 
to  him  a  vast  and  inspiring  strain  of  mel- 


110  THE  POET  AT 

ody.]  —  I  thought  all  this,  while  the  Scara- 
bee  supposed  I  was  studying  the  minute 
characters  of  the  enigmatical  specimen. 

—  I  know  what  I  consider  your  pediculus 
melittce,  I  said  at  length. 

Do  you  think  it  really  the  larva  of  meloe  ? 

—  O,  I  don't  know  much  about  that,  but 
I    think   he    is  the   best  cared    for,  on  the 
whole,  of  any  animal  that  I  know  of ;  and 
if  I  was  n't  a  man  I  believe  I  had  rather  be 
that  little  sybarite  than  anything  that  feasts 
at  the  board  of  nature. 

—  The  question  is,  whether  he  is  the  larva 
of  meloe,  —  the  Scarabee  said,  as  if  he  had 
not  heard  a  word  of  what  I  had  just  been 
saying.  —  If   I  live   a  few  years   longer  it 
shall  be  settled,  sir  ;  and  if  my  epitaph  can 
say  honestly  that  I  settled  it,  I  shall  be  will 
ing  to    trust  my  posthumous  fame  to    that 
achievement. 

I  said  good  morning  to  the  specialist,  and 
went  off  feeling  not  only  kindly,  but  respect 
fully  towards  him.  He  is  an  enthusiast,  at 
any  rate,  as  "  earnest "  a  man  as  any  philan 
thropic  reformer  who,  having  passed  his  life 
in  worrying  people  out  of  their  misdoings 
into  good  behavior,  comes  at  last  to  a  state 
in  which  he  is  never  contented  except  when 
he  is  making  somebody  uncomfortable.  He 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  Ill 

does  certainly  know  one  thing  well,  very 
likely  better  than  anybody  in  the  world. 

I  find  myself  somewhat  singularly  placed 
at  our  table  between  a  minute  philosopher 
who  has  concentrated  all  his  faculties  on  a 
single  subject,  and  my  friend  who  finds 
the  present  universe  too  restricted  for  his 
intelligence.  I  would  not  give  much  to  hear 
what  the  Scarabee  says  about  the  old  Mas 
ter,  for  he  does  not  pretend  to  form  a  judg 
ment  of  anything  but  beetles,  but  I  should 
like  to  hear  what  the  Master  has  to  say 
about  the  Scarabee.  I  waited  after  break 
fast  until  he  had  gone,  and  then  asked  the 
Master  what  he  could  make  of  our  dried-up 
friend. 

—  Well,  —  he  said,  —  I  am  hospitable 
enough  in  my  feelings  to  him  and  all  his 
tribe.  These  specialists  are  the  coral-insects 
that  build  up  a  reef.  By  and  by  it  will  be 
an  island,  and  for  aught  we  know  may  grow 
into  a  continent.  But  I  don't  want  to  be  a 
coral-insect  myself.  I  had  rather  be  a  voy 
ager  that  visits  all  the  reefs  and  islands  the 
creatures  build,  and  sails  over  the  seas  where 
they  have  as  yet  built  up  nothing.  I  am  a 
little  afraid  that  science  is  breeding  us  down 
too  fast  into  coral-insects.  A  man  like 
Newton  or  Leibnitz  or  Haller  used  to  paint 


112  THE  POET  AT 

a  picture  of  outward  or  inward  nature  with 
a  free  hand,  and  stand  back  and  look  at  it 
as  a  whole  and  feel  like  an  archangel ;  but 
nowadays  you  have  a  Society,  and  they 
come  together  and  make  a  great  mosaic, 
each  man  bringing  his  little  bit  and  sticking 
it  in  its  place,  but  so  taken  up  with  his  petty 
fragment  that  he  never  thinks  of  looking  at 
the  picture  the  little  bits  make  when  they 
are  put  together.  You  can't  get  any  talk 
out  of  these  specialists  away  from  their  own 
subjects,  any  more  than  you  can  get  help 
from  a  policeman  outside  of  his  own  beat. 

-  Yes,  —  said  I,  —  but  why  should  n't 
we  always  set  a  man  talking  about  the  thing 
he  knows  best  ? 

—  No  doubt,  no  doubt,  if  you  meet  him 
once  ;  but  what  are  you  going  to  do  with 
him  if  you  meet  him  every  day  ?  I  travel 
with  a  man  and  we  want  to  make  change 
very  often  in  paying  bills.  But  every  time 
I  ask  him  to  change  a  pistareen,  or  give  me 
two  fo'pencehappemiies  for  a  ninepence,  or 
help  me  to  make  out  two  and  thrippence 
(mark  the  old  Master's  archaisms  about  the 
currency),  what  does  the  fellow  do  but  put 
his  hand  in  his  pocket  and  pull  out  an  old 
Roman  coin ;  I  have  no  change,  says  he,  but 
this  assarion  of  Diocletian.  Mighty  deal  of 
good  that  '11  do  me  ! 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  113 

—  It  is  n't  quite  so  handy  as  a  few  speci 
mens  of  the  modern  currency  would  be,  but 
you  can  pump  him  on  numismatics. 

-  To  be  sure,  to  be  sure.  I  've  pumped 
a  thousand  men  of  all  they  could  teach  me, 
or  at  least  all  I  could  learn  from  'em  ;  and 
if  it  comes  to  that,  I  never  saw  the  man  that 
could  n't  teach  me  something.  I  can  get 
along  with  everybody  in  his  place,  though  I 
think  the  place  of  some  of  my  friends  is 
over  there  among  the  feeble-minded  pupils, 
and  I  don't  believe  there 's  one  of  them  I 
could  n't  go  to  school  to  for  half  an  hour 
and  be  the  wiser  for  it.  But  people  you 
talk  with  every  day  have  got  to  have  feeders 
for  their  minds,  as  much  as  the  stream  that 
turns  a  mill-wheel  has.  It  is  n't  one  little 
rill  that 's  going  to  keep  the  float-boards 
turning  round.  Take  a  dozen  of  the  bright 
est  men  you  can  find  in  the  brightest  city, 
wherever  that  may  be,  —  perhaps  you  and  I 
think  we  know,  —  and  let  'em  come  together 
once  a  month,  and  you'll  find  out  in  the 
course  of  a  year  or  two  the  ones  that  have 
feeders  from  all  the  hillsides.  Your  com 
mon  talkers,  that  exchange  the  gossip  of  the 
day,  have  no  wheel  in  particular  to  turn, 
and  the  wash  of  the  rain  as  it  runs  down  the 
street  is  enough  for  them. 


114  THE  POET  AT 

—  Do  you  mean  you  can  always  see  the 
sources  from  which  a  man  fills  his  mind,  — 
his  feeders,  as  you  call  them  ? 

-  I  don't  go  quite  so  far  as  that,  —  the 
Master  said.  —  I  Ve  seen  men  whose  minds 
were  always  overflowing,  and  yet  they  did 
n't  read  much  nor  go  much  into  the  world. 
Sometimes  you  '11  find  a  bit  of  a  pond-hole 
in  a  pasture,  and  you  '11  plunge  your  walk 
ing-stick  into  it  and  think  you  are  going  to 
touch  bottom.  But  you  find  you  are  mis 
taken.  Some  of  these  little  stagnant  pond- 
holes  are  a  good  deal  deeper  than  you  think  ; 
you  may  tie  a  stone  to  a  bed- cord  and  not 
get  soundings  in  some  of  'em.  The  country 
boys  will  tell  you  they  have  no  bottom,  but 
that  only  means  that  they  are  mighty  deep  ; 
and  so  a  good  many  stagnant,  stupid-seem 
ing  people  are  a  great  deal  deeper  than  the 
length  of  your  intellectual  walking-stick,  I 
can  tell  you.  There  are  .hidden  springs  that 
keep  the  little  pond-holes  full  when  the 
mountain  brooks  are  all  dried  up.  You 
poets  ought  to  know  that. 

—  I  can't   help    thinking  you  are    more 
tolerant     towards    the     specialists    than    I 
thought  at  first,  by  the  way  you  seemed  to 
look  at  our  dried-up  neighbor  and  his  small 
pursuits. 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  115 

—  I  don't  like  the  word  tolerant,  —  the 
Master  said.  —  As  long  as  the  Lord  can  tol 
erate  me  I  think  I  can  stand  my  fellow-crea 
tures.     Philosophically,  I  love  'em  all ;  em 
pirically,  I  don't  think  I  am  very  fond  of  all 
of  'em.     It  depends  on  how  you  look  at  a 
man  or  a  woman.     Come  here,  Youngster, 
will  you  ?  —  he  said  to  That  Boy. 

The  Boy  was  trying  to  catch  a  blue-bot 
tle  to  add  to  his  collection,  and  was  indis 
posed  to  give  up  the  chase ;  but  he  presently 
saw  that  the  Master  had  taken  out  a  small 
coin  and  laid  it  on  the  table,  and  felt  him 
self  drawn  in  that  direction. 

Read  that,  —  said  the  Master. 

U-n-i-ni  —  United  States  of  America  5 
cents. 

The  Master  turned  the  coin  over.  Now 
read  that. 

In  God  is  our  t-r-u-s-t  —  trust.     1869. 
—  Is  that  the  same  piece  of  money  as  the 
other  one  ? 

—  There  ain't  any  other  one,  —  said  the 
Boy,  —  there  ain't  but  one,  but  it 's  got  two 
sides  to  it  with  different  reading. 

—  That 's  it,  that 's  it,  —  said  the  Master, 
—  two  sides  to  everybody,  as  there  are  to 
that   piece   of   money.     I  've    seen   an   old 
woman  that  would  n't  fetch  five  cents  if  you 


116  THE  POET  AT 

should  put  her  up  for  sale  at  public  auction  ; 
and  yet  come  to  read  the  other  side  of  her, 
she  had  a  trust  in  God  Almighty  that  was 
like  the  bow  anchor  of  a  three-decker.  It 's 
faith  in  something  and  enthusiasm  for  some 
thing  that  makes  a  life  worth  looking  at.  I 
don't  think  your  ant-eating  specialist,  with 
his  sharp  nose  and  pin-head  eyes,  is  the  best 
every-day  companion ;  but  any  man  who 
knows  one  thing  well  is  worth  listening  to 
for  once  ;  and  if  you  are  of  the  large-brained 
variety  of  the  race,  and  want  to  fill  out  your 
programme  of  the  order  of  things  in  a  sys 
tematic  and  exhaustive  way,  and  get  all  the 
half-notes  and  flats  and  sharps  of  humanity 
into  your  scale,  you  'd  a  great  deal  better 
shut  your  front  door  and  open  your  two  side 
ones  when  you  come  across  a  fellow  that  has 
made  a  real  business  of  doing  anything. 

—  That  Boy  stood  all  this  time  looking 
hard  at  the  five-cent  piece. 

—  Take   it,  —  said   the   Master,    with   a 
good-natured  smile. 

—  The  Boy  made  a  snatch  at  it  and  was 
off  for  the  purpose  of  investing  it. 

—  A  child  naturally  snaps  at  a  thing  as  a 
dog  does  at  his  meat,  —  said  the  Master.  — 
If  you  think  of  it,  we  Ve  all  been  quadru 
peds.     A  child  that  can  only  crawl  has  all 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  11T 

the  instincts  of  a  four-footed  beast.  It  car 
ries  things  in  its  mouth  just  as  cats  and  dogs 
do.  I  've  seen  the  little  brutes  do  it  over 
and  over  again.  I  suppose  a  good  many 
children  would  stay  quadrupeds  all  their 
lives,  if  they  did  n't  learn  the  trick  of  walk 
ing  on  their  hind  legs  from  seeing  all  the 
grown  people  walking  in  that  way. 

-Do  you  accept  Mr.  Darwin's   notions 
about  the  origin  of  the  race  ?  —  said  I. 

The  Master  looked  at  me  with  that  twin 
kle  in  his  eye  which  means  that  he  is  going 
to  parry  a  question. 

—  Better  stick  to  Blair's  Chronology ; 
that  settles  it.  Adam  and  Eve,  created  Fri 
day,  October  28th,  B.  c.  4004.  You  've  been 
in  a  ship  for  a  good  while,  and  here  comes 
Mr.  Darwin  on  deck  with  an  armful  of 
sticks  and  says,  "  Let 's  build  a  raft,  and 
trust  ourselves  to  that." 

If  your  ship  springs  a  leak,  what  would 
you  do  ? 

He  looked  me  straight  in  the  eyes  for 
about  half  a  minute. —  If  I  heard  the  pumps 
going,  I  'd  look  and  see  whether  they  were 
gaining  on  the  leak  or  not.  If  they  were 
gaining  I  'd  stay  where  I  was.  —  Go  and  find 
out  what's  the  matter  with  that  young 
woman. 


118  THE  POET  AT 

I  had  noticed  that  the  Young  Girl  —  the 
story-writer,  our  Scheherezade,  as  I  called 
her  —  looked  as  if  she  had  been  crying  or 
lying  awake  half  the  night.  I  found  on  ask 
ing  her,  —  for  she  is  an  honest  little  body 
and  is  disposed  to  be  confidential  with  me 
for  some  reason  or  other,  —  that  she  had 
been  doing  both. 

—  And  what  was  the  matter  now,  I  ques 
tioned  her  in  a  semi-paternal  kind  of  way, 
as  soon  as  I  got  a  chance  for  a  few  quiet 
words  with  her. 

She  was  engaged  to  write  a  serial  story,  it 
seems,  and  had  only  got  as  far  as  the  second 
number,  and  some  critic  had  been  jumping 
upon  it,  she  said,  and  grinding  his  heel  into 
it,  till  she  could  n't  bear  to  look  at  it.  He 
said  she  did  not  write  half  so  well  as  half 
a  dozen  other  young  women.  She  didn't 
write  half  so  well  as  she  used  to  write  her 
self.  She  hadn't  any  characters  and  she 
had  n't  any  incidents.  Then  he  went  to  work 
to  show  how  her  story  was  coining  out,  — 
trying  to  anticipate  everything  she  could 
make  of  it,  so  that  her  readers  should  have 
nothing  to  look  forward  to,  and  he  should 
have  credit  for  his  sagacity  in  guessing, 
which  was  nothing  so  very  wonderful,  she 
seemed  to  think.  Things  she  had  merely 


THE  BBEAKFA&T-TABLE.  119 

hinted  and  left  the  reader  to  infer,  he  told 
right  out  in  the  bluntest  and  coarsest  way. 
It  had  taken  all  the  life  out  of  her,  she  said. 
It  was  just  as  if  at  a  dinner-party  one  of  the 
guests  should  take  a  spoonful  of  soup  and 
get  up  and  say  to  the  company,  "  Poor  stuff, 
poor  stuff ;  you  won't  get  anything  better ; 
let 's  go  somewhere  else  where  things  are  fit 
to  eat." 

What  do  you  read  such  things  for,  my 
dear  ?  —  said  I. 

The  film  glistened  in  her  eyes  at  the 
strange  sound  of  those  two  soft  words ;  she 
had  not  heard  such  very  often,  I  am  afraid. 

—  I  know  I  am  a  foolish  creature  to  read 
them,  —  she    answered,  —  but  I    can't  help 
it ;    somebody  always  sends  me  everything 
that  will  make  me  wretched  to  read,  and  so 
I  sit  down  and  read  it,  and  ache  all  over  for 
my  pains,  and  lie  awake  all  night. 

—  She  smiled  faintly  as  she  said  this,  for 
she  saw  the  sub-ridiculous  side  of  it,  but  the 
film  glittered  still  in  her  eyes.     There  are  a 
good  many  real  miseries  in  life  that  we  can 
not  help  smiling  at,  but  they  are  the  smiles 
that     make     wrinkles    and     not     dimples. 
"  Somebody    always     sends    her    everything 
that  will   make    her  wretched."     Who  can 
those  creatures  be  who  cut  out  the  offensive 


120  THE  POET  AT 

paragraph  and  send  it  anonymously  to  us, 
who  mail  the  newspaper  which  has  the  arti 
cle  we  had  much  better  not  have  seen,  who 
take  care  that  we  shall  know  everything 
which  can,  by  any  possibility,  help  to  make 
us  discontented  with  ourselves  and  a  little 
less  light-hearted  than  we  were  before  we 
had  been  fools  enough  to  open  their  incen 
diary  packages  ?  I  don't  like  to  say  it  to 
myself,  but  I  cannot  help  suspecting,  in  this 
instance,  the  doubtful-looking  personage 
who  sits  on  my  left,  beyond  the  Scarabee.  I 
have  some  reason  to  think  that  he  has  made 
advances  to  the  young  girl  which  were  not 
favorably  received,  to  state  the  case  in  mod 
erate  terms,  and  it  may  be  that  he  is  taking 
his  revenge  in  cutting  up  the  poor  girl's 
story.  I  know  this  very  well,  that  some  per 
sonal  pique  or  favoritism  is  at  the  bottom  of 
half  the  praise  and  dispraise  which  pretend 
to  be  so  very  ingenuous  and  discriminating. 
(Of  course  I  have  been  thinking  all  this 
time  and  telling  you  what  I  thought.) 

—  What  you  want  is  encouragement,  my 
dear,  —  said  I,  —  I  know  that  as  well  as 
you.  I  don't  think  the  fellows  that  write 
such  criticisms  as  you  tell  me  of  want  to  cor 
rect  your  faults.  I  don't  mean  to  say  that 
you  can  learn  nothing  from  them,  because 


THE  BBEAKFAST-TABLE.  121 

they  are  not  all  fools  by  any  means,  and  they 
will  often  pick  out  your  weak  points  with 
a  malignant  sagacity,  as  a  pettifogging  law 
yer  will  frequently  find  a  real  flaw  in  trying 
to  get  at  everything  he  can  quibble  about. 
But  is  there  nobody  who  will  praise  you  gen 
erously  when  you  do  well,  —  nobody  that 
will  lend  you  a  hand  now  while  you  want  it, 
—  or  must  they  all  wait  until  you  have 
made  yourself  a  name  among  strangers,  and 
then  all  at  once  find  out  that  you  have  some 
thing  in  you  ? 

O,  —  said  the  girl,  and  the  bright  film 
gathered  too  fast  for  her  young  eyes  to 
hold  much  longer,  —  I  ought  not  to  be 
ungrateful!  I  have  found  the  kindest 
friend  in  the  world.  Have  you  ever  heard 
the  Lady  —  the  one  that  I  sit  next  to  at 
the  table  —  say  anything  about  me  ? 

I  have  not  really  made  her  acquaintance,  I 
said.  She  seems  to  me  a  little  distant  in  her 
manners,  and  I  have  respected  her  pretty 
evident  liking  for  keeping  mostly  to  herself. 

—  O,  but  when  you  once  do  know  her  ! 
I  don't  believe  I  could  write  stories  all  the 
time  as  I  do,  if  she  did  n't  ask  me  up  to  her 
chamber,  and  let  me  read  them  to  her.  Do 
you  know,  I  can  make  her  laugh  and  cry, 
reading  my  poor  stories9  And  sometimes, 


122  THE  POET  AT 

when  I  feel  as  if  I  had  written  out  all  there 
is  in  me,  and  want  to  lie  down  and  go  to 
sleep  and  never  wake  up  except  in  a  world 
where  there  are  no  weekly  papers,  —  when 
everything  goes  wrong,  like  a  car  off  the 
track,  —  she  takes  hold  and  sets  me  on  the 
rails  again  all  right. 

—  How  does  she  go  to  work  to  help  you  ? 

—  Why,  she  listens  to  my  stories,  to  be 
gin  with,  as  if  she  really  liked  to  hear  them. 
And  then  you  know  I  am  dreadfully  trou 
bled  now  and  then  with  some  of  my  charac 
ters,  and  can't  think  how  to  get  rid  of  them. 
And  she  '11  say,  perhaps,  Don't  shoot  your 
villain  this  time,  you  've  shot  three  or  four 
already  in  the  last  six  weeks  ;  let  his  mare 
stumble  and  throw  him  and  break  his  neck. 
Or  she  '11  give  me  a  hint  about  some  new 
way  for   my  lover  to   make  a   declaration. 
She  must  have  had  a  good  many  offers,  it 's 
my  belief,  for  she  has  told  me  a  dozen  differ 
ent  ways  for  me  to  use  in  my  stories.     And 
whenever  I  read  a  story  to  her,  she  always 
laughs  and  cries  in   the  right  places;   and 
that's  such  a    comfort,  for  there  are  some 
people  that  think  everything  pitiable  is  so 
funny,  and    will    burst  out   laughing  when 
poor  Rip    Van   Winkle — you've  seen  Mr. 
Jefferson,  have  n't  you  ?  —  is  breaking  your 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  123 

heart  for  you  if  you  have  one.  Sometimes 
she  takes  a  poem  I  have  written  and  reads 
it  to  me  so  beautifully,  that  I  fall  in  love 
with  it,  and  sometimes  she  sets  my  verses  to 
music  and  sings  them  to  me. 

-  You  have  a  laugh  together  sometimes, 
do  you  ? 

—  Indeed  we  do.     I  write  for  what  they 
call  the  "  Comic  Department"  of  the  paper 
now  and  then.     If  I  did  not  get  so  tired  of 
story-telling,  I   suppose  I  should   be  gayer 
than  I  am ;  but  as  it  is,  we  two  get  a  little 
fun  out  of  my  comic  pieces.     I  begin  them 
half-crying   sometimes,    but   after  they  are 
done  they  amuse  me.     I  don't  suppose  my 
comic  pieces  are  very  laughable  ;  at  any  rate 
the  man  who  makes  a  business  of  writing 
me  down  says  the  last  one  I  wrote  is  very 
melancholy  reading,  and  that  if  it  was  only 
a  little  better  perhaps  some  bereaved  person 
might  pick  out  a  line  or  two  that  would  do 
to  put  on  a  gravestone. 

—  Well,   that    is    hard,  I    must    confess. 
Do  let  rne  see  those  lines  which  excite  such 
sad  emotions. 

—  Will    you    read    them   very    good-na 
turedly?     If  you  will,  I  will  get  the  paper 
that  has  "  Aunt  Tabitha."     That  is  the  one 
the    fault-finder   said   produced    such   deep 


124  THE  POET  AT 

depression  of  feeling.  It  was  written  for 
the  "  Comic  Department."  Perhaps  it  will 
make  you  cry,  but  it  was  n't  meant  to. 

—  I  will  finish  my  report  this  time  with 
our  Scheherezade's  poem,  hoping  that  any 
critic  who  deals  with  it  will  treat  it  with  the 
courtesy  due  to  all  a  young  lady's  literary 
efforts. 

AUNT  TABITHA. 

Whatever  I  do,  and  whatever  I  say, 
Aunt  Tabitha  tells  me  that  is  n't  the  way ; 
When  she  was  a  girl  (forty  summers  ago) 
Aunt  Tabitha  tells  me  they  never  did  so. 

Dear  aunt !     If  I  only  would  take  her  advice  ! 
But  I  like  my  own  way,  and  I  find  it  so  nice  ! 
And  besides,  I  forget  half  the  things  I  am  told ; 
But  they  all  will  come  back  to  me  —  when  I  am 
old. 

If  a  youth  passes  by,  it  may  happen,  no  doubt, 
He  may  chance  to  look  in  as  I  chance  to  look 

out ; 

She  would  never  endure  an  impertinent  stare,  — 
It  is  howid,  she  says,  and  I  must  n't  sit  there. 

A  walk  in  the  moonlight  has  pleasures,  I  own, 
But  it  is  n't  quite  safe  to  be  walking  alone  ; 


THE  BEEAKFAST-TABLE.  125 

So    I  take  a   lad's  arm,  —  just   for  safety,  you 

know,  — 
But  Aunt  Tabitha  tells  me  they  did  n't  do  so. 

How  wicked  we  are,  and  how  good  they  were 

then! 

They  kept  at  arm's  length  those  detestable  men  ; 
What  an    era    of    virtue    she    lived    in !  —  But 

stay  — 
Were  the  men  all  such  rogues  in  Aunt  Tabitha's 

day  ? 

If  the  men  were  so  wicked,  I  '11  ask  my  papa 
How  he  dared  to  propose  to  my  darling  mamma  ; 
Was  he  like  the  rest  of  them  ?    Goodness  !     Who 

knows  ? 
And  what  shall  /  say  if  a  wretch  should  propose  ? 

I  am  thinking  if  Aunt  knew  so  little  of  sin, 
What  a  wonder  Aunt  Tabitha's  aunt  must  have 

been! 
And    her     grand-aunt  —  it     scares    me  —  hovr 

shockingly  sad 
That  we  girls  of  to-day  are  so  frightfully  bad  ! 

A  martyr  will  save  us,  and  nothing  else  can  ; 
Let  me  perish  —  to  rescue  some  wretched  young 

man  ! 

Though  when  to  the  altar  a  victim  I  go, 
Aunt  Tabitha  '11  tell  me  she  never  did  so  ! 


126  THE  POET  AT 


IV. 

The  old  Master  has  developed  one  qual 
ity  of  late  for  which  I  am  afraid  I  hardly 
gave  him  credit.  He  has  turned  out  to  be 
an  excellent  listener. 

—  I  love  to  talk,  —  he  said,  - —  as  a  goose 
loves   to   swim.     Sometimes   I   think   it   is 
because  I  am  a  goose.     For  I  never  talked 
much  at  any  one  time   in  my  life  without 
saying  something  or  other  I  was  sorry  for. 

—  You  too  !  —  said  I.  —  Now  that  is  very 
odd,  for  it  is  an  experience  /have  habitually. 
I  thought   you  were  rather  too  much  of  a 
philosopher  to  trouble  yourself  about  such 
small  matters  as  to   whether  you  had  said 
just  what  you  meant  to  or  not ;  especially  as 
you  know  that  the  person  you  talk  to  does 
not  remember  a  word  of  what  you  said  the 
next  morning,  but  is   thinking,  it  is  much 
more  likely,  of  what  she  said,  or  how  her 
new  dress  looked,  or  some  other  body's  new 
dress  which  made  hers  look  as  if  it  had  been 
patched  together  from  the  leaves  of  last  No 
vember.    That 's  what  she  's  probably  think 
ing  about. 

-  She  !  —  said  the  Master,  with  a  look 
which  it  would  take  at  least  half  a  page  to 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  127 

explain  to  the  entire  satisfaction  of  thought 
ful  readers  of  both  sexes. 

- 1  paid  the  respect  due  to  that  most 
significant  monosyllable,  which,  as  the  old 
Rabbi  spoke  it,  with  its  targum  of  tone  and 
expression,  was  not  to  be  answered  flippantly, 
but  soberly,  advisedly,  and  after  a  pause 
long  enough  for  it  to  unfold  its  meaning  in 
the  listener's  mind.  For  there  are  short 
single  words  (all  the  world  remembers  Ra 
chel's  Helas  /)  which  are  like  those  Japa 
nese  toys  that  look  like  nothing  of  any  sig 
nificance  as  you  throw  them  on  the  water, 
but  which  after  a  little  time  open  out  into 
various  strange  and  unexpected  figures,  and 
then  you  find  that  each  little  shred  had  a 
complicated  story  to  tell  of  itself. 

—  Yes,  —  said  I,  at  the  close  of  this  silent 
interval,  during  which  the  monosyllable  had 
been  opening  out  its  meanings,  —  She. 
When  I  think  of  talking,  it  is  of  course  with 
a  woman.  For  talking  at  its  best  being  an 
inspiration,  it  wants  a  corresponding  divine 
quality  of  receptiveness  ;  and  where  will  you 
find  this  but  in  woman  ? 

The  Master  laughed  a  pleasant  little 
laugh,  —  not  a  harsh,  sarcastic  one,  but  play 
ful,  and  tempered  by  so  kind  a  look  that  it 
seemed  as  if  every  wrinkled  line  about  his 


128  THE  POET  AT 

old  eyes  repeated,  "  God  bless  you,"  as  the 
tracings  on  the  walls  of  the  Alhambra  repeat 
a  sentence  of  the  Koran. 

I  said  nothing,  but  looked   the  question, 
What  are  you  laughing  at  ? 

—  Why,   I  laughed    because  I   could  n't 
help  saying  to  myself  that  a  woman  whose 
mind  was  taken  up  with  thinking  how  she 
looked,  and  how  her  pretty  neighbor  looked, 
wouldn't  have   a  great  deal  of   thought  to 
spare  for  all  your  fine  discourse. 

—  Come,  now, —  said  I,  —  a  man  who  con 
tradicts  himself  in  the  course  of  two  minutes 
must  have  a  screw  loose    in  his  mental  ma 
chinery.     I  never   feel  afraid  that  such   a 
thing  can  happen  to  me,  though  it  happens 
often  enough  when  I  turn  a  thought   over 
suddenly,  as  you  did  that  five-cent  piece  the 
other  day,  that  it  reads  differently  on  its  two 
sides.     What  I  meant   to  say  is  something 
like  this.     A  woman,  notwithstanding  she  is 
the  best  of  listeners,  knows  her  business,  and 
it  is  a  woman's  business  to  please.     I  don't 
say  that  it  is  not  her  business  to  vote,  but  I 
do  say  that  a  woman  who  does  not  please  is  a 
false  note  in  the  harmonies  of  nature.     She 
may  not  have  youth,  or  beauty,  or  even  man 
ner  ;    but  she  must  have  something  in  her 
voice  or  expression,  or  both,  which  it  makes 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  129 

you  feel  better  disposed  towards  your  race  to 
look  at  or  listen  to.  She  knows  tliat  as  well 
as  we  do ;  and  her  first  question  after  you 
have  been  talking  your  soul  into  her  con 
sciousness  is,  .Did  I  please  ?  A  woman  never 
forgets  her  sex.  She  would  rather  talk  with 
a  man  than  an  angel,  any  day. 

—  This  frightful  speech  of  mine  reached 
the  ear  of  our  Scheherezade,  who  said  that  it 
was  perfectly  shocking  and  that  I  deserved 
to  be  shown  up  as  the  outlaw  in  one  of  her 
bandit  stories. 

Hush,  my  dear,  —  said  the  Lady,  —  you 
will  have  to  bring  John  Milton  into  your 
story  with  our  friend  there,  if  you  punish 
everybody  who  says  naughty  things  like  that. 
Send  the  little  boy  up  to  my  chamber  for 
Paradise  Lost,  if  you  please.  He  will  find  it 
lying  on  my  table.  The  little  old  volume,  — 
he  can't  mistake  it. 

So  the  girl  called  That  Boy  round  and 
gave  him  the  message  ;  I  don't  know  why 
she  should  give  it,  but  she  did,  and  the  Lady 
helped  her  out  with  a  word  or  two. 

The  little  volume  —  its  cover  protected 
with  soft  white  leather  from  a  long  kid  glove, 
evidently  suggesting  the  brilliant  assemblies 
of  the  days  when  friends  and  fortune  smiled 
—  came  presently  and  the  Lady  opened  it. 


130  THE  POET  AT 

-  You  may  read  that,  if  you  like,  —  she 
said,  —  it  may  show  you  that  our  friend  is  to 
be  pilloried  in  good  company. 

The  young  girl  ran  her  eye  along  the 
passage  the  Lady  pointed  out,  blushed, 
laughed,  and  slapped  the  book  down  as 
though  she  would  have  liked  to  box  the 
ears  of  Mr.  John  Milton,  if  he  had  been 
a  contemporary  and  fellow-contributor  to  the 
Weekly  Bucket.  —  I  won't  touch  the  thing, 

—  she  said.  —  He  was  a  horrid  man  to  talk 
so  ;  and  he  had  as  many  wives  as  Blue-Beard. 

—  Fair  play,  —  said  the  Master.  —  Bring 
me  the  book,  my  little  fractional  superfluity, 

—  I   mean  you,  my  nursling,  —  my  boy,  if 
that  suits  your  small  Highness  better. 

The  Boy  brought  the  book. 

The  old  Master,  not  unfamiliar  with  the 
great  epic,  opened  pretty  nearly  to  the 
place,  and  very  soon  found  the  passage.  He 
read  aloud  with  grand  scholastic  intonation 
and  in  a  deep  voice  that  silenced  the  table  as 
if  a  prophet  had  just  uttered  Thus  saith  the 
Lord :  — 

'•'  So  spake  our  sire,  and  by  his  countenance  seemed 
Entering  on  studious  thoughts  abstruse  ;  which  Eve 
Perceiving  — 

went   to    water   her  geraniums,  to   make  a 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  131 

short  story  of  it,  and  left  the  two  "  conver 
sationists,"  to  wit,  the  angel  Raphael  and 
the  gentleman, —  there  was  but  one  gentle 
man  in  society  then,  you  know,  —  to  talk  it 
out. 

"  Yet  went  she  not,  as  not  with  such  discourse 
Delighted,  or  not  capable  her  ear 
Of  what  was  high  ;  such  pleasure  she  reserved, 
Adam  relating,  she  sole  auditress  ; 
Her  husband  the  relater  she  preferred 
Before  the  angel,  and  of  him  to  ask 
Chose  rather  ;  he  she  knew  would  intermix 
Grateful  digressions,  and  solve  high  dispute 
With  conjugal  caresses  :  from  his  lips 
Not  words  alone  pleased  her." 

Everybody  laughed,  except  the  Capitalist, 
who  was  a  little  hard  of  hearing,  and  the 
Scarabee,  whose  life  was  too  earnest  for 
demonstrations  of  that  kind.  He  had  his 
eyes  fixed  on  the  volume,  however,  with 
eager  interest. 

—  The  p'int  's  carried,  —  said  the  Mem 
ber  of  the  Haouse. 

Will  you  let  me  look  at  that  book  a  sin 
gle  minute  ?  —  said  the  Scarabee.  I  passed 
it  to  him,  wondering  what  in  the  world  he 
wanted  of  Paradise  Lost. 

Dermestes  lardarius,  —  he  said,  pointing 
to  a  place  where  the  edge  of  one  side  of  the 
outer  cover  had  been  slightly  tasted  by  some 


132  THE  POET  AT 

insect.  —  Very  fond  of  leather  while  they  're 
in  the  larva  state. 

-  Damage  the  goods  as  bad  as  mice,  — 
said  the  Salesman. 

-Eat  half  the  binding  off  Folio  G7,  - 
said  the  Register  of  Deeds.  Something  did, 
anyhow,  and  it  wasn't  mice.  Found  the 
shelf  covered  with  little  hairy  cases  belong 
ing  to  something  or  other  that  had  no  busi 
ness  there. 

Skins  of  the  Dermcstcs  lardarius,  —  said 
the  Scarabee,  —  you  can  always  tell  them 
by  those  brown  hairy  coats.  That 's  the 
name  to  give  them. 

—  What  good  does  it  do  to  give  'em  a 
name  after  they  Ve  eat  the  binding  off  my 
folios  ?  —  asked  the  Register  of  Deeds. 

The  Scarabee  had  too  much  respect  for 
science  to  answer  such  a  question  as  that ; 
and  the  book,  having  served  its  purposes, 
was  passed  back  to  the  Lady. 

I  return  to  the  previous  question,  —  said 
I,  —  if  our  friend  the  Member  of  the  House 
of  Representatives  will  allow  me  to  borrow 
the  phrase.  Womanly  women  are  very 
kindly  critics,  except  to  themselves  and  now 
and  then  to  their  own  sex.  The  less  there 
is  of  sex  about  a  woman,  the  more  she  is  to 
be  dreaded.  But  take  a  real  woman  at  her 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  133 

best  moment,  —  well  dressed  enough  to  be 
pleased  with  herself,  not  so  resplendent  as 
to  be  a  show  and  a  sensation,  with  tho§e  va 
ried  outside  influences  which  set  vibrating 
the  harmonic  notes  of  her  nature  stirring  in 
the  air  about  her,  —  and  what  has  social 
life  to  compare  with  one  of  those  vital  inter 
changes  of  thought  and  feeling  with  her  that 
make  an  hour  memorable  ?  What  can 
equal  her  tact,  her  delicacy,  her  subtlety  of 
apprehension,  her  quickness  to  feel  the 
changes  of  temperature  as  the  warm  and 
cool  currents  of  talk  blow  by  turns?  At 
one  moment  she  is  microscopically  intellec 
tual,  critical,  scrupulous  in  judgment  as  an 
analyst's  balance,  and  the  next  as  sympa 
thetic  as  the  open  rose  that  sweetens  the 
wind  from  whatever  quarter  it  finds  its  way 
to  her  bosom.  It  is  in  the  hospitable  soul 
of  a  woman  that  a  man  forgets  he  is  a  stran 
ger,  and  so  becomes  natural  and  truthful,  at 
the  same  time  that  he  is  mesmerized  by  all 
those  divine  differences  which  make  her  a 
mystery  and  a  bewilderment  to  — 

If  you  fire  your  popgun  at  me,  you  little 
chimpanzee,  I  will  stick  a  pin  right  through 
the  middle  of  you  and  put  you  into  one  of 
this  gentleman's  beetle-cases  ! 

I    caught   the    imp    that   time,  but  what 


134  THE  POET  AT 

started  him  was  more   than  I  could   sruess. 

o 

It  is  rather  hard  that  this  spoiled  child 
should  spoil  such  a  sentence  as  that  was  go 
ing  to  be  ;  but  the  wind  shifted  all  at  once, 
and  the  talk  had  to  come  round  on  another 
tack,  or  at  least  fall  off  a  point  or  two  from 
its  course. 

—  I  '11  tell  you  who  I  think  are  the  best 
talkers  in  all  probability,  —  said  I  to  the 
Master,  who,  as  I  mentioned,  was  develop 
ing  interesting  talent  as  a  listener,  —  poets 
who  never  write  verses.  And  there  are  a 
good  many  more  of  these  than  it  would  seem 
at  first  sight.  I  think  you  may  say  every 
young  lover  is  a  poet,  to  begin  with.  I 
don't  mean  either  that  all  young  lovers  are 
good  talkers,  —  they  have  an  eloquence  all 
their  own  when  they  are  with  the  beloved 
object,  no  doubt,  emphasized  after  the  fash 
ion  the  solemn  bard  of  Paradise  refers  to 
with  such  delicious  humor  in  the  passage  we 
just  heard,  —  but  a  little  talk  goes  a  good 
way  in  most  of  these  cooing  matches,  and 
it  would  n't  do  to  report  them  too  literally. 
What  I  mean  is,  that  a  man  with  the  gift  of 
musical  and  impassioned  phrase  (and  love 
often  lends  that  to  a  young  person  for  a 
while),  who  "  wreaks  "  it,  to  borrow  Byron's 
word,  on  conversation  as  the  natural  outlet 


THE  BEE AKF AST-TABLE.  135 

of  his  sensibilities  and  spiritual  activities,  is 
likely  to  talk  better  than  the  poet,  who  plays 
on  the  instrument  of  verse.  A  great  pianist 
or  violinist  is  rarely  a  great  singer.  To 
write  a  poem  is  to  expend  the  vital  force 
which  would  have  made  one  brilliant  for  an 
hour  or  two,  and  to  expend  it  on  an  instru 
ment  with  more  pipes,  reeds,  keys,  stops, 
and  pedals  than  the  Great  Organ  that  shakes 
New  England  every  time  it  is  played  in  full 
blast. 

Do  you  mean  that  it  is  hard  work  to  write 
a  poem  ?  —  said  the  old  Master.  —  I  had  an 
idea  that  a  poem  wrote  itself,  as  it  were, 
very  often ;  that  it  came  by  influx,  without 
voluntary  effort ;  indeed,  you  have  spoken 
of  it  as  an  inspiration  rather  than  a  result 
of  volition. 

—  Did  you  ever  see  a  great  ballet-dancer  ? 
—  I  asked  him. 

—  I  have  seen  Taglioni,  —  he  answered.  — 
She  used  to  take  her  steps  rather  prettily. 
I  have  seen  the  woman  that  danced  the  cap 
stone  on  to  Bunker  Hill  Monument,  as  Or 
pheus  moved  the  rocks  by  music,  —  the  Els- 
sler   woman,  —  Fanny  Elssler.     She  would 
dance  you  a  rigadoon  or  cut  a  pigeon's  wing 
for  you  very  respectably. 

(Confound  this  old  college  book-worm,  — 
he  has  seen  everything  !) 


136  THE  POET  AT 

Well,  did  these  two  ladies  dance  as  if  it 
was  hard  work  to  them  ? 

—  Why  no,  I  should  say  they  danced  as 
if  they  liked  it  and  could  n't  help  dancing  ; 
they  looked  as  if  they  felt  so  "  corky  "  it  was 
hard  to  keep  them  down. 

—  And  yet  they  had  been  through  such 
work  to  get  their  limbs  strong  and   flexible 
and  obedient,  that  a  cart-horse  lives  an  easy 
life  compared  to  theirs  while  they  were  in 
training. 

-  The  Master  cut  in  just  here  —  I  had 
sprung  the  trap  of  a  reminiscence. 

—  When  I  was  a  boy,  —  he  said,  —  some 
of  the  mothers  in  our  small  town,  who  meant 
that  their  children  should  know  what   was 
what  as  well  as  other  people's  children,  laid 
their  heads  together  and  got  a  dancing-mas 
ter  to  come  out  from  the  city  and  give  in 
struction  at  a  few  dollars  a  quarter  to  the 
young   folks    of    condition    in    the    village. 
Some  of  their  husbands  were  ministers  and 
some  were  deacons,  but  the  mothers  knew 
what  they  were  about,  and  they  did  n't  see 
any    reason    why  ministers'    and    deacons' 
wives'  children  should  n't  have  as  easy  man 
ners   as  the  sons  and   daughters  of  Belial. 
So,  as  I  tell  you,  they  got  a  dancing-master 
to  come  out  to  our  place,  —  a  man  of  good 


THE  BBEAKFAST-TABLE.  137 

repute,  a  most  respectable  man,  —  madam 
(to  the  Landlady),  you  must  remember  the 
worthy  old  citizen,  in  his  advanced  age,  go 
ing  about  the  streets,  a  most  gentlemanly 
bundle  of  infirmities,  —  only  he  always 
cocked  his  hat  a  little  too  much  on  one  side, 
as  they  do  here  and  there  along  the  Connec 
ticut  River,  and  sometimes  on  our  city  side 
walks,  when  they  Ve  got  a  new  beaver ;  they 
got  him,  I  say,  to  give  us  boys  and  girls  les 
sons  in  dancing  and  deportment.  He  was 
as  gray  and  as  lively  as  a  squirrel,  as  I  re 
member  him,  and  used  to  spring  up  in  the 
air  and  "  cross  his  feet,"  as  we  called  it, 
three  times  before  he  came  down.  Well,  at 
the  end  of  each  term  there  was  what  they 
called  an  "  exhibition  ball,"  in  which  the 
scholars  danced  cotillons  and  country- 
dances  ;  also  something  called  a  "  gavotte," 
and  I  think  one  or  more  walked  a  minuet. 
But  all  this  is  not  what  I  wanted  to  say. 
At  this  exhibition  ball  he  used  to  brine1  out 

O 

a  number  of  hoops  wreathed  with  roses,  of 
the  perennial  kind,  by  the  aid  of  which  a 
number  of  amazingly  complicated  and  star 
tling  evolutions  were  exhibited ;  and  also  his 
two  daughters,  who  figured  largely  in  these 
evolutions,  and  whose  wonderful  perform 
ances  to  us,  who  had  not  seen  Miss  Taglioni 


138  T1IE  POET  AT 

or  Miss  Elssler,  were  something  quite  won 
derful,  in  fact,  surpassing  the  natural  possi 
bilities  of  human  beings.  Their  extraordi 
nary  powers  were,  however,  accounted  for 
by  the  following  explanation,  which  was  ac 
cepted  in  the  school  as  entirely  satisfactory. 
A  certain  little  bone  in  the  ankles  of  each  of 
these  young  girls  had  been  broken  intention 
ally,  secundum  artem,  at  a  very  early  age, 
and  thus  they  had  been  fitted  to  accomplish 
these  surprising  feats  which  threw  the 
achievements  of  the  children  who  were  left 
in  the  condition  of  the  natural  man  into 
ignominious  shadow. 

—  Thank  you,  —  said  I,  —  you  have 
helped  out  my  illustration  so  as  to  make 
it  better  than  I  expected.  Let  me  begin 
again.  Every  poem  that  is  worthy  of  the 
name,  no  matter  how  easily  it  seems  to  be 
written,  represents  a  great  amount  of  vital 
force  expended  at  some  time  or  other. 
When  you  find  a  beach  strewed  with  the 
shells  and  other  spoils  that  belonged  once 
to  the  deep  sea,  you  know  the  tide  has  been 
there,  and  that  the  winds  and  waves  have 
wrestled  over  its  naked  sands.  And  so,  if  I 
find  a  poem  stranded  in  my  soul  and  have 
nothing  to  do  but  seize  it  as  a  wrecker  car 
ries  off  the  treasure  he  finds  cast  ashore,  I 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  139 

know  I  have  paid  at  some  time  for  that  poem 
with  some  inward  commotion,  were  it  only 
an  excess  of  enjoyment,  which  has  used  up 
just  so  much  of  my  vital  capital.  But  be 
sides  all  the  impressions  that  furnished  the 
stuff  of  the  poem,  there  has  been  hard  work 
to  get  the  management  of  that  wonderful  in 
strument  I  spoke  of,  —  the  great  organ,  lan 
guage.  An  artist  who  works  in  marble  or 
colors  has  them  all  to  himself  and  his  tribe, 
but  the  man  who  moulds  his  thought  in  verse 
has  to  employ  the  materials  vulgarized  by 
everybody's  use,  and  glorify  them  by  his 
handling.  I  don't  know  that  you  must  break 
any  bones  in  a  poet's  mechanism  before  his 
thought  can  dance  in  rhythm,  but  read  your 
Milton  and  see  what  training,  what  patient 
labor,  it  took  before  he  could  shape  our 
common  speech  into  his  majestic  harmonies. 
It  is  rather  singular,  but  the  same  kind  of 
thing  has  happened  to  me  not  very  rarely 
before,  as  I  suppose  it  has  to  most  persons, 
that  just  when  I  happened  to  be  thinking 
about  poets  and  their  conditions,  this  very 
morning,  I  saw  a  paragraph  or  two  from  a 
foreign  paper  which  is  apt  to  be  sharp,  if 
not  cynical,  relating  to  the  same  matter. 
I  can't  help  it ;  I  want  to  have  my  talk 
about  it,  and  if  I  say  the  same  things  that 


140  THE  POET  AT 

writer  did,  somebody  else  can  have  the  sat 
isfaction  of  saying  I  stole  them  all. 

[I  thought  the  person  whom  I  have  called 
hypothetically  the  Man  of  Letters  changed 
color  a  little  and  betrayed  a  certain  awk 
ward  consciousness  that  some  of  us  were 
looking  at  him  or  thinking  of  him  ;  but  I 
am  a  little  suspicious  about  him  and  may  do 
him  wrong.] 

That  poets  are  treated  as  privileged  per 
sons  by  their  admirers  and  the  educated 
public  can  hardly  be  disputed.  That  they 
consider  themselves  so  there  is  no  doubt 
whatever.  On  the  whole,  I  do  not  know 
so  easy  a  way  of  shirking  all  the  civic  and 
social  and  domestic  duties,  as  to  settle  it  in 
one's  mind  that  one  is  a  poet.  I  have,  there 
fore,  taken  great  pains  to  advise  other  persons 
laboring  under  the  impression  that  they  were 
gifted  beings,  destined  to  soar  in  the  atmo 
sphere  of  song  above  the  vulgar  realities  of 
earth,  not  to  neglect  any  homely  duty  under 
the  influence  of  that  impression.  The  num 
ber  of  these  persons  is  so  great  that  if  they 
were  suffered  to  indulge  their  prejudice 
against  e very-day  duties  and  labors,  it  would 
be  a  serious  loss  to  the  productive  industry  of 
the  country.  My  skirts  are  clear  (so  far  as 
other  people  are  concerned)  of  countenancing 


THE  BEEAKFAST-TABLE.  141 

that  form  of  intellectual  opium  -  eating  in 
which  rhyme  takes  the  place  of  the  narcotic. 
But  what  are  you  going  to  do  when  you  find 
John  Keats  an  apprentice  to  a  surgeon  or 
apothecary  ?  Is  n't  it  rather  better  to  get 
another  boy  to  sweep  out  the  shop  and  shake 
out  the  powders  and  stir  up  the  mixtures,  and 
leave  him  undisturbed  to  write  his  Ode  on  a 
Grecian  Urn  or  to  a  Nightingale  ?  O  yes, 
the  critic  I  have  referred  to  would  say,  if  he 
is  John  Keats ;  but  not  if  he  is  of  a  much 
lower  grade,  even  though  he  be  genuine, 
what  there  is  of  him.  But  the  trouble  is, 
the  sensitive  persons  who  belong  to  the 
lower  grades  of  the  poetical  hierarchy  do  not 
know  their  own  poetical  limitations,  while 
they  do  feel  a  natural  unfitness  and  disin 
clination  for  many  pursuits  which  young 
persons  of  the  average  balance  of  faculties 
take  to  pleasantly  enough.  What  is  forgot 
ten  is  this,  that  every  real  poet,  even  of  the 
humblest  grade,  is  an  artist.  Now  I  ven 
ture  to  say  that  any  painter  or  sculptor  of 
real  genius,  though  he  may  do  nothing  more 
than  paint  flowers  and  fruit,  or  carve  cam 
eos,  is  considered  a  privileged  person.  It  is 
recognized  perfectly  that  to  get  his  best 
work  he  must  be  insured  the  freedom  from 
disturbances  which  the  creative  power  abso 


142  THE  POET  AT 

lutely  demands,  more  absolutely  perhaps  in 
these  slighter  artists  than  in  the  great  mas 
ters.  His  nerves  must  be  steady  for  him  to 
finish  a  rose-leaf  or  the  fold  of  a  nymph's 
drapery  in  his  best  manner  ;  and  they  will 
be  imsteadied  if  he  has  to  perform  the  hon 
est  drudgery  which  another  can  do  for  him 
quite  as  well.  And  it  is  just  so  with  the 
poet,  though  he  were  only  finishing  an  epi 
gram  ;  you  must  no  more  meddle  roughly 
with  him  than  you  would  shake  a  bottle  of 
Chambertin  and  expect  the  "  sunset  glow  " 
to  redden  your  glass  unclouded.  On  the 
other  hand,  it  may  be  said  that  poetry  is  not 
an  article  of  prime  necessity,  and  potatoes 
are.  There  is  a  disposition  in  many  per 
sons  just  now  to  deny  the  poet  his  benefit  of 
clergy,  and  to  hold  him  no  better  than  other 
people.  Perhaps  he  is  not,  perhaps  he  is 
not  so  good,  half  the  time  ;  but  he  is  a  lux 
ury,  and  if  you  want  him  you  must  pay  for 
him,  by  not  trying  to  make  a  drudge  of  him 
while  he  is  all  his  lifetime  struggling  with 
the  chills  and  heats  of  his  artistic  intermit 
tent  fever. 

There  may  have  been  some  lesser  inter 
ruptions  during  the  talk  I  have  reported  as 
if  it  was  a  set  speech,  but  this  was  the  drift 


THE  BEEAKFAST-TABLE.  143 

of  what  I  said  and  should  have  said  if  the 
other  man,  in  the  Review  I  referred  to,  had 
not  seen  fit  to  meddle  with  the  subject,  as 
some  fellow  always  does,  just  about  the  time 
when  I  am  going  to  say  something  about  it. 
The  old  Master  listened  beautifully,  except 
for  cutting  in  once,  as  I  told  you  he  did. 
But  now  he  had  held  in  as  long  as  it  was  in 
his  nature  to  contain  himself,  and  must  have 
his  say  or  go  off  in  an  apoplexy,  or  explode 
in  some  way. 

—  I  think  you  're  right  about  the  poets, 
—  he  said.  —  They  are  to  common  folks 
what  repeaters  are  to  ordinary  watches. 
They  carry  music  in  their  inside  arrange 
ments,  but  they  want  to  be  handled  carefully 
or  you  put  them  out  of  order.  And  perhaps 
you  must  n't  expect  them  to  be  quite  as 
good  timekeepers  as  the  professional  chro 
nometer  watches  that  make  a  specialty  of 
being  -exact  within  a  few  seconds  a  month. 
They  think  too  much  of  themselves.  So 
does  everybody  that  considers  himself  as 
having  a  right  to  fall  back  on  what  he  calls 
his  idiosyncracy.  Yet  a  man  has  such  a 
right,  and  it  is  no  easy  thing  to  adjust  the 
private  claim  to  the  fair  public  demand  on 
him.  Suppose  you  are  subject  to  tic  doulou 
reux,  for  instance.  Every  now  and  then  a 


144  THE  POET  AT 

tiger  that  nobody  can  see  catches  one  side  of 
your  face  between  his  jaws  and  holds  on  till 
he  is  tired  and  lets  go.  Some  concession 
must  be  made  to  you  on  that  score,  as 
everybody  can  see.  It  is  fair  to  give  you 
a  seat  that  is  not  in  the  draught,  and  your 
friends  ought  not  to  find  fault  with  you  if 
you  do  not  care  to  join  a  party  that  is 
going  on  a  sleigh -ride.  Now  take  a  poet 
like  Cowper.  He  had  a  mental  neuralgia, 
a  great  deal  worse  in  many  respects  than 
tic  douloureux  confined  to  the  face.  It  was 
well  that  he  was  sheltered  and  relieved,  by 
the  cares  of  kind  friends,  especially  those 
good  women,  from  as  many  of  the  burdens 
of  life  as  they  could  lift  off  from  him.  I 
am  fair  to  the  poets,  —  don't  you  agree  that 
I  am? 

Why,  yes,  —  I  said,  —  you  have  stated 
the  case  fairly  enough,  a  good  deal  as  I 
should  have  put  it  myself. 

-  Now,  then,  —  the  Master  continued,  — 
I  '11  tell  you  what  is  necessary  to  all  these 
artistic  idiosyncrasies  to  bring  them  into 
good  square  human  relations  outside  of  the 
special  province  where  their  ways  differ 
from  those  of  other  people.  I  am  going  to 
illustrate  what  I  mean  by  a  comparison.  I 
don't  know,  by  the  way,  but  you  would  be 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  145 

disposed  to  think  and  perhaps  call  me  a 
wine-bibber  on  the  strength  of  the  freedom 
with  which  I  deal  with  that  fluid  for  the 
purposes  of  illustration.  But  I  make  mighty 
little  use  of  it,  except  as  it  furnishes  me  an 
image  now  and  then,  as  it  did,  for  that  mat 
ter,  to  the  Disciples  and  their  Master.  In 
my  younger  days  they  used  to  bring  up  the 
famous  old  wines,  the  White-top,  the  Juno, 
the  Eclipse,  the  Essex  Junior,  and  the  rest, 
in  their  old  cob  webbed,  dusty  bottles.  The 
resurrection  of  one  of  these  old  sepulchred 
dignitaries  had  something  of  solemnity  about 
it ;  it  was  like  the  disinterment  of  a  king  ; 
the  bringing  to  light  of  the  Royal  Martyr 
King  Charles  I.,  for  instance,  that  Sir  Henry 
Halford  gave  such  an  interesting  account  of. 
And  the  bottle  seemed  to  inspire  a  personal 
respect ;  it  was  wrapped  in  a  napkin  and 
borne  tenderly  and  reverently  round  to  the 
guests,  and  sometimes  a  dead  silence  went 
before  the  first  gush  of  its  amber  flood,  and 

"  The  boldest  held  his  breath 
Fora  time." 

But  nowadays  the  precious  juice  of  a  long- 
dead  vintage  is  transferred  carefully  into  a 
cut-glass  decanter,  and  stands  side  by  side 
with  the  sherry  from  a  corner  grocery,  which 
looks  just  as  bright  and  apparently  thinks 


146  THE  POET  AT 

just  as  well  of  itself.  The  old  historic  Ma 
deiras,  which  have  warmed  the  periods  of 
our  famous  rhetoricians  of  the  past  and 
burned  in  the  impassioned  eloquence  of  our 
earlier  political  demigods,  have  nothing  to 
mark  them  externally  but  a  bit  of  thread,  it 
may  be,  round  the  neck  of  the  decanter,  or  a 
slip  of  ribbon,  pink  on  one  of  them  and  blue 
on  another. 

Go  to  a  London  club,  —  perhaps  I  might 
find  something  nearer  home  that  would  serve 
my  turn,  —  but  go  to  a  London  club,  and 
there  you  will  see  the  celebrities  all  looking 
alike  modern,  all  decanted  of?  from  their 
historic  antecedents  and  their  costume  of 
circumstance  into  the  every-day  aspect  of 
the  gentleman  of  common  cultivated  society. 
That  is  Sir  Co3ur  de  Lion  Plantagenet  in 
the  mutton-chop  whiskers  and  the  plain  gray 
suit ;  there  is  the  Laureate  in  a  frock-coat 
like  your  own,  and  the  leader  of  the  House 
of  Commons  in  a  necktie  you  do  not  envy. 
That  is  the  kind  of  thing  you  want  to  take 
the  nonsense  out  of  you.  If  you  are  not  de 
canted  off  from  yourself  every  few  days  or 
weeks,  you  will  think  it  sacrilege  to  brush  a 
cobweb  from  your  cork  by  and  by.  O  little 
fool,  that  has  published  a  little  book  full  of 
little  poems  or  other  sputtering  tokens  of  an 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  147 

uneasy  condition,  how  I  love  you  for  the  one 
soft  nerve  of  special  sensibility  that  runs 
through  your  exiguous  organism,  and  the 
one  phosphorescent  particle  in  your  unillu- 
ininated  intelligence  !  But  if  you  don't  leave 
your  spun-sugar  confectionery  business  once 
in  a  while,  and  come  out  among  lusty  men, 
—  the  bristly,  pachydermatous  fellows  that 
hew  out  the  highways  for  the  material  pro 
gress  of  society,  and  the  broad-shouldered, 
out-of-door  men  that  fight  for  the  great 
prizes  of  life,  —  you  will  come  to  think  that 
the  spun-sugar  business  is  the  chief  end  of 
man,  and  begin  to  feel  and  look  as  if  you 
believed  yourself  as  much  above  common 
people  as  that  personage  of  whom  Tourgue- 
neff  says  that  "  he  had  the  air  of  his  own 
statue  erected  by  national  subscription." 

—  The  Master  paused  and  fell  into  a  deep 
thinking  fit,  as  he  does  sometimes.     He  had 
had  his  own  say,  it  is  true,  but  he  had  es 
tablished  his  character  as  a  listener  to  my 
own  perfect  satisfaction,  for  I,  too,  was  con 
scious   of   having  preached    with  a   certain 
prolixity. 

—  I  am  always  troubled  when  I  think  of 
my   very   limited    mathematical   capacities. 
It   seems   as  if   every  well-organized   mind 


148  THE  POET  AT 

should  be  able  to  handle  numbers  and  quan 
tities  through  their  symbols  to  an  indefinite 
extent ;  and  yet,  I  am  puzzled  by  what 
seems  to  a  clever  boy  with  a  turn  for  calcu 
lation  as  plain  as  counting  his  fingers.  I 
don't  think  any  man  feels  well  grounded  in 
knowledge  unless  he  has  a  good  basis  of 
mathematical  certainties,  and  knows  how-to 
deal  with  them  and  apply  them  to  every 
branch  of  knowledge  where  they  can  come 
in  to  advantage. 

Our  young  Astronomer  is  known  for  his 
mathematical  ability,  and  I  asked  him  what 
he  thought  was  the  difficulty  in  the  minds 
that  are  weak  in  that  particular  direction, 
while  they  may  be  of  remarkable  force  in 
other  provinces  of  thought,  as  is  notoriously 
the  case  with  some  men  of  great  distinction 
in  science. 

The  young  man  smiled  and  wrote  a  few 
letters  and  symbols  on  a  piece  of  paper.  — 
Can  you  see  through  that  at  once  ?  —  he  said. 

I  puzzled  over  it  for  some  minutes  and 
gave  it  up. 

-  He  said,  as  I  returned  it  to  him,  You 
have  heard  military  men  say  that  such  a 
person  had  an  eye  for  country,  have  n't  you  ? 
One  man  will  note  all  the  landmarks,  keep 
the  points  of  compass  in  his  head,  observe 


THE  BBEAKFAST-TABLE.  149 

how  the  streams  run,  in  short,  carry  a  map 
in  his  brain  of  any  region  that  he  has 
marched  or  galloped  through.  Another  man 
takes  no  note  of  any  of  these  things ;  always 
follows  somebody  else's  lead  when  he  can, 
and  gets  lost  if  he  is  left  to  himself ;  a  mere 
owl  in  daylight.  Just  so  some  men  have  an 
eye  for  an  equation,  and  would  read  at  sight 
the  one  that  you  puzzled  over.  It  is  told  of 
Sir  Isaac  Newton  that  he  required  no  dem 
onstration  of  the  propositions  in  Euclid's 
Geometry,  but  as  soon  as  he  had  read  the 
enunciation  the  solution  or  answer  was  plain 
at  once.  The  power  may  be  cultivated,  but 
I  think  it  is  to  a  great  degree  a  natural  gift, 
as  is  the  eye  for  color,  as  is  the  ear  for  music. 

—  I  think  I  could  read  equations  readily 
enough,  —  I  said,  —  if    I   could    only   keep 
my  attention  fixed  on  them  ;    and  I  think  I 
could  keep  my  attention  on  them  if  I  were 
imprisoned    in  a  thinking-cell,   such  as  the 
Creative  Intelligence  shapes  for    its  studio 
when  at  its  divinest  work. 

The  young  man's  lustrous  eyes  opened 
very  widely  as  he  asked  me  to  explain  what 
I  meant. 

—  What  is  the  Creator's  divinest  work? 
- 1  asked. 

—  Is  there  anything  more  divine  than  the 


150  THE  POET  AT 

sun  ;  than  a  sun  with  its  planets  revolving 
about  it,  warming  them,  lighting  them,  and 
giving  conscious  life  to  the  beings  that  move 
on  them  ? 

—  You  agree,  then,  that  conscious  life  is 
the  grand  aim  and  end  of  all  this  vast  mech 
anism.  Without  life  that  could  feel  and  en 
joy,  the  splendors  and  creative  energy  would 
all  be  thrown  away.  You  know  Harvey's 
saying,  omnia  animalia  ex  ovo,  —  all  ani 
mals  come  from  an  egg.  You  ought  to 
know  it,  for  the  great  controversy  going  on 
about  spontaneous  generation  has  brought  it 
into  special  prominence  lately.  Well,  then, 
the  ovum,  the  egg,  is,  to  speak  in  human 
phrase,  the  Creator's  more  private  and  sa 
cred  studio,  for  his  magnum  opus.  Now, 
look  at  a  hen's  egg,  which  is  a  convenient 
one  to  study,  because  it  is  large  enough  and 
built  solidly  enough  to  look  at  and  handle 
easily.  That  would  be  the  form  I  would 
choose  for  my  thinking-cell.  Build  me  an 
oval  with  smooth,  translucent  walls,  and  put 
me  in  the  centre  of  it  with  Newton's  "  Prin- 
cipia "  or  Kant's  "  Kritik,"  and  I  think  1 
shall  develop  "  an  eye  for  equation,"  as  you 
call  it,  and  a  capacity  for  an  abstraction. 

But  do  tell  me,  —  said  the  Astronomer,  a 
little  incredulously,  —  what  there  is  in  that 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  151 

particular  form  which  is   going  to  help  you 
to  be  a  mathematician  or  a  metaphysician  ? 

—  It  is  n't  help  I  want,  it  is  removing 
hindrances.  I  don't  want  to  see  anything 
to  draw  off  my  attention.  I  don't  want  a 
cornice,  or  an  angle,  or  anything  but  a 
containing  curve.  I  want  diffused  light  and 
110  single  luminous  centre  to  fix  my  eye,  and 
so  distract  my  mind  from  its  one  object  of 
contemplation.  The  metaphysics  of  atten 
tion  have  hardly  been  sounded  to  their 
depths.  The  mere  fixing  the  look  on  any 
single  object  for  a  long  time  may  produce 
very  strange  effects.  Gibbon's  well-known 
story  of  the  monks  of  Mount  Athos  and  their 
contemplative  practice  is  often  laughed  over, 
but  it  has  a  meaning.  They  were  to  shut 
the  door  of  the  cell,  recline  the  beard  and 
chin  on  the  breast,  and  contemplate  the  ab 
dominal  centre.  "  At  first  all  will  be  dark 
and  comfortless ;  but  if  you  persevere  day 
and  night,  you  will  feel  an  ineffable  joy; 
and  no  sooner  has  the  soul  discovered  the 
place  of  the  heart,  than  it  is  involved  in  a 
mystic  and  ethereal  light."  And  Mr.  Braid 
produces  absolute  anesthesia,  so  that  surgi 
cal  operations  can  be  performed  without  suf 
fering  to  the  patient,  only  by  making  him 
fix  his  eyes  and  his  mind  on  a  single  object ; 


152  THE  POET  AT 

and  Newton  is  said  to  have  said,  as  you  re 
member,  "  I  keep  the  subject  constantly  be 
fore  me,  and  wait  till  the  first  d awnings  open 
slowly  by  little  and  little  into  a  full  and  clear 
light."  These  are  different,  but  certainly  very 
wonderful,  instances  of  what  can  be  done 
by  attention.  But  now  suppose  that  your 
mind  is  in  its  nature  discursive,  erratic,  sub 
ject  to  electric  attractions  and  repulsions, 
volage ;  it  may  be  impossible  for  you  to 
compel  your  attention  except  by  taking 
away  all  external  disturbances.  I  think  the 
poets  have  an  advantage  and  a  disadvantage 
as  compared  with  the  steadier-going  people. 
Life  is  so  vivid  to  the  poet,  that  he  is  too 
eager  to  seize  and  exhaust  its  multitudinous 
impressions.  Like  Sindbad  in  the  valley  of 
precious  stones,  he  wants  to  fill  his  pockets 
with  diamonds,  but,  lo !  there  is  a  great 
ruby  like  a  setting  sun  in  its  glory,  and  a 
sapphire  that,  like  Bryant's  blue  gentian, 
seems  to  have  dropped  from  the  cerulean 
walls  of  heaven,  and  a  nest  of  pearls  that 
look  as  if  they  might  be  unhatched  angel's 
eggs,  and  so  he  hardly  knows  what  to  seize, 
and  tries  for  too  many,  and  comes  out  of 
the  enchanted  valley  with  more  gems  than 
he  can  carry,  and  those  that  he  lets  fall  by 
the  wayside  we  call  his  poems.  You  may 


THE  BEEAKFAST-TABLE  153 

change  the  image  a  thousand  ways  to 
show  you  how  hard  it  is  to  make  a  math 
ematician  or  a  logician  out  of  a  poet.  He 
carries  the  tropics  with  him  wherever  he 
goes  ;  he  is  in  the  true  sense  filius  naturce, 
and  Nature  tempts  him,  as  she  tempts  a 
child  walking  through  a  garden  where  all 
the  finest  fruits  are  hanging  over  him  and 
dropping  round  him,  where 

The  luscious  clusters  of  the  vine 
Upon  (his)  mouth  do  crush  their  wine, 
The  nectarine  and  curious  peach, 
Into  (his)  hands  themselves  do  reach  ; 

and  he  takes  a  bite  out  of  the  sunny  side  of 
this  and  the  other,  and,  ever  stimulated  and 
never  satisfied,  is  hurried  through  the  garden, 
and,  before  he  knows  it,  finds  himself  at  an 
iron  gate  which  opens  outward,  and  leaves 
the  place  he  knows  and  loves  — 

—  For  one  he  will  perhaps  soon  learn  to 
love  and  know  better,  —  said  the  Master.  — 
But  1  can  help  you  out  with  another  com 
parison,  not  quite  so  poetical  as  yours. 
Why  did  not  you  think  of  a  railway-station, 
where  the  cars  stop  five  minutes  for  refresh 
ments  ?  Is  n't  that  a  picture  of  the  poet's 
hungry  and  hurried  feast  at  the  banquet  of 
life?  The  traveller  flings  himself  on  the 
bewildering  miscellany  of  delicacies  spread 


154  THE  POET  AT 

before  him,  the  various  tempting  forms  of 
ambrosia  and  seducing  draughts  of  nectar, 
with  the  same  eager  hurry  and  restless  ar 
dor  that  you  describe  in  the  poet.  Dear 
me  !  If  it  was  n't  for  All  aboard !  that  sum 
mons  of  the  deaf  conductor  which  tears  one 
away  from  his  half-finished  sponge-cake  and 
coffee,  how  I,  who  do  not  call  myself  a 
poet,  but  only  a  questioner,  should  have  en 
joyed  a  good  long  stop  —  say  a  couple  of 
thousand  years  —  at  this  way-station  on  the 
great  railroad  leading  to  the  unknown  ter 
minus  ! 

-  You  say  you  are  not  a  poet,  —  I  said, 
after  a  little  pause,  in  which  1  suppose  both 
of  us  were  thinking  where  the  great  railroad 
would  land  us  after  carrying  us  into  the 
dark  tunnel,  the  farther  end  of  which  no 
man  has  seen  and  taken  a  return  train  to 
bring  us  news  about  it,  —  you  say  you  are 
not  a  poet,  and  yet  it  seems  to  me  you  have 
some  of  the  elements  which  go  to  make 
one. 

- 1  don't  think  you  mean  to  flatter  me, 
—  the  Master  answered,  —  and,  what  is 
more,  for  I  am  not  afraid  to  be  honest  with 
you,  I  don't  think  you  do  flatter  me.  I 
have  taken  the  inventory  of  my  faculties 
as  calmly  as  if  I  were  an  appraiser.  I  have 


THE  BEE AKF AST-TABLE.  155 

some  of  the  qualities,  perhaps  I  may  say 
many  of  the  qualities,  that  make  a  man  a 
poet,  and  yet  I  am  not  one.  And  in  the 
course  of  a  pretty  wide  experience  of  men  — 
and  women  —  (the  Master  sighed,  I  thought, 
but  perhaps  I  was  mistaken)  —  I  have  met 
a  good  many  poets  who  were  not  rhymesters 
and  a  good  many  rhymesters  who  were  not 
poets.  So  I  am  only  one  of  the  Voiceless, 
that  I  remember  one  of  you  singers  had 
some  verses  about.  I  think  there  is  a  little 
music  in  me,  but  it  has  not  found  a  voice, 
and  it  never  will.  If  I  should  confess  the 
truth,  there  is  no  mere  earthly  immortality 
that  I  envy  so  much  as  the  poet's.  If  your 
name  is  to  live  at  all,  it  is  so  much  more  to 
have  it  live  in  people's  hearts  than  only  in 
their  brains  !  I  don't  know  that  one's  eyes 
fill  with  tears  when  he  thinks  of  the  famous 
inventor  of  logarithms,  but  a  song  of  Burns's 
or  a  hymn  of  Charles  Wesley's  goes  straight 
to  your  heart,  and  you  can't  help  loving  both 
of  them,  the  sinner  as  well  as  the  saint. 
The  works  of  other  men  live,  but  their  peiv 
sonality  dies  out  of  their  labors  ;  the  poet, 
who  reproduces  himself  in  his  creation,  as 
no  other  artist  does  or  can,  goes  down  to 
posterity  with  all  his  personality  blended 
with  whatever  is  imperishable  in  his  songo 


156  THE  POET  AT 

We  see  nothing  of  the  bees  that  built  the 
honeycomb  and  stored  it  with  its  sweets,  but 
we  can  trace  the  veining  in  the  wings  of  in 
sects  that  flitted  through  the  forests  which 
are  now  coal-beds,  kept  unchanging  in  the 
amber  that  holds  them  ;  and  so  the  passion 
of  Sappho,  the  tenderness  of  Simonides,  the 
purity  of  holy  George  Herbert,  the  lofty 
contemplativeness  of  James  Shirley,  are  be 
fore  us  to-day  as  if  they  were  living,  in  a 
few  tears  of  amber  verse.  It  seems,  when 
one  reads, 

"  Sweet  day!  so  cool,  so  calm,  so  bright," 

or, 

"  The  glories  of  our  birth  and  state," 

as  if  it  were  not  a  very  difficult  matter  to 
gain  immortality,  —  such  an  immortality  at 
least  as  a  perishable  language  can  give.  A 
single  lyric  is  enough,  if  one  can  only  find 
in  his  soul  and  finish  in  his  intellect  one  of 
those  jewels  fit  to  sparkle  "  on  the  stretched 
fore-finger  of  all  time."  A  coin,  a  ring,  a 
string  of  verses.  These  last,  and  hardly 
anything  else  does.  Every  century  is  an 
overloaded  ship  that  must  sink  at  last  with 
most  of  its  cargo.  The  small  portion  of  its 
crew  that  get  on  board  the  new  vessel  which 
takes  them  off  don't  pretend  to  save  a  great 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  157 

many  of  the  bulky  articles.  But  they  must 
not  and  will  not  leave  behind  the  hereditary 
jewels  of  the  race  ;  and  if  you  have  found 
and  cut  a  diamond,  were  it  only  a  spark 
with  a  single  polished  facet,  it  will  stand  a 
better  chance  of  being*  saved  from  the  wreck 
than  anything,  no  matter  what,  that  wants 
much  room  for  stowage. 

The  pyramids  last,  it  is  true,  but  most  of 
them  have  forgotten  their  builders'  names. 
But  the  ring  of  Thothmes  III.,  who  reigned 
some  fourteen  hundred  years  before  our  era, 
before  Homer  sang,  before  the  Argonauts 
sailed,  before  Troy  was  built,  is  in  the  pos 
session  of  Lord  Ashburnham,  and  proclaims 
the  name  of  the  monarch  who  wore  it  more 
than  three  thousand  years  ago.  The  gold 
coins  with  the  head  of  Alexander  the  Great 
are  some  of  them  so  fresh  one  might  think 
they  were  newer  than  much  of  the  silver 
currency  we  were  lately  handling.  As  we 
have  been  quoting  from  the  poets  this  morn 
ing,  I  will  follow  the  precedent,  and  give 
some  lines  from  an  epistle  of  Pope  to  Addi- 
son  after  the  latter  had  written,  but  not  yet 
published,  his  Dialogue  on  Medals.  Some 
of  these  lines  have  been  lingering  in  my 
memory  for  a  great  many  years,  but  I  looked 
at  the  original  the  other  day  and  was  so 


158  THE  POET  AT 

pleased  with  them  that  I  got  them  by  heart. 
I  think  you  will  say  they  are  singularly 
pointed  and  elegant. 

"  Ambition  sighed  ;  she  found  it  vain  to  trust 
The  faithless  column  and  the  crumbling  bust ; 
Huge  moles,  whose  shadows  stretched  from  shore  to 

shore, 

Their  ruins  perished,  and  their  place  no  more  ! 
Convinced,  she  now  contracts  her  vast  design, 
And  all  her  triumphs  shrink  into  a  coin. 
A  narrow  orb  each  crowded  conquest  keeps, 
Beneath  her  palm  here  sad  Judaea  weeps  ; 
Now  scantier  limits  the  proud  arch  confine, 
And  scarce  are  seen  the  prostrate  Nile  or  Rhine  ; 
A  small  Euphrates  through  the  piece  is  rolled, 
And  little  eagles  wave  their  wings  in  gold." 

It  is  the  same  thing  in  literature.  Write 
half  a  dozen  folios  full  of  other  people's 
ideas  (as  all  folios  are  pretty  sure  to  be), 
and  you  serve  as  ballast  to  the  lower  shelves 
of  a  library,  about  as  like  to  be  disturbed  as 
the  kentledge  in  the  hold  of  a  ship.  Write 
a  story,  or  a  dozen  stories,  and  your  book 
will  be  in  demand  like  an  oyster  while  it  is 
freshly  opened,  and  after  that  —  — .  The 
highways  of  literature  are  spread  over  with 
the  shells  of  dead  novels,  each  of  which  has 
been  swallowed  at  a  mouthful  by  the  public, 
and  is  done  with.  But  write  a  volume  of 
poems.  No  matter  if  they  are  all  bad  but 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  159 

one,  if  that  one  is  very  good.  It  will  carry 
your  name  down  to  posterity  like  the  ring1 
of  Thothmes,  like  the  coin  of  Alexander.  I 
don't  suppose  one  would  care  a  great  deal 
about  it  a  hundred  or  a  thousand  years  after 
he  is  dead,  but  I  don't  feel  quite  sure.  It 
seems  as  if,  even  in  heaven,  King  David 
might  remember  "  The  Lord  is  my  Shep 
herd  "  with  a  certain  twinge  of  earthly  pleas 
ure.  But  we  don't  know,  we  don't  know. 

—  What  in  the  world  can  have  become 
of  That  Boy  and  his  popgun  while  all  this 
somewhat  extended  sermonizing  was  going 
on  ?  I  don't  wonder  you  ask,  beloved 
Reader,  and  I  suppose  I  must  tell  you  how 
we  got  on  so  long  without  interruption. 
Well,  the  plain  truth  is,  the  youngster  was 
contemplating  his  gastric  centre,  like  the 
monks  of  Mount  Athos,  but  in  a  less  happy 
state  of  mind  than  those  tranquil  recluses, 
in  consequence  of  indulgence  in  the  hetero 
geneous  assortment  of  luxuries  procured 
with  the  five-cent  piece  given  him  by  the 
kind-hearted  old  Master.  But  you  need  not 
think  I  am  going  to  tell  you  every  time  his 
popgun  goes  off,  making  a  SelaJi  of  him 
whenever  I  want  to  change  the  subject.  Oc 
casionally  he  was  ill-timed  in  his  artillery 


160  THE  POET  AT 

practice  and  ignominiously  rebuked,  some 
times  he  was  harmlessly  playful  and  nobody 
minded  him,  but  every  now  and  then  he 
came  in  so  apropos  that  I  am  morally  cer 
tain  he  gets  a  hint  from  somebody  who 
watches  the  course  of  the  conversation,  and 
means  through  him  to  have  a  hand  in  it  and 
stop  any  of  us  when  we  are  getting  prosy. 
But  in  consequence  of  That  Boy's  indiscre 
tion,  we  were  without  a  check  upon  our  ex- 
pansiveness,  and  ran  on  in  the  way  you  have 
observed  and  may  be  disposed  to  find  fault 
with. 

One  other  thing  the  Master  said  before 
we  left  the  table,  after  our  long  talk  of  that 
day. 

-  I  have  been  tempted  sometimes,  — 
said  he,  —  to  envy  the  immediate  triumphs 
of  the  singer.  He  enjoys  all  that  praise 
can  do  for  him  and  at  the  very  moment  of 
exerting  his  talent.  And  the  singing  wo 
men  !  Once  in  a  while,  in  the  course  of  my 
life,  I  have  found  myself  in  the  midst  of  a 
tulip-bed  of  full-dressed,  handsome  women 
in  all  their  glory,  and  when  some  one  among 
them  has  shaken  her  gauzy  wings,  and  sat 
down  before  the  piano,  and  then,  only  giving 
the  keys  a  soft  touch  now  and  then  to  sup- 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  161 

port  her  voice,  has  warbled  some  sweet,  sad 
melody  intertwined  with  the  longings  or  re 
grets  of  some  tender-hearted  poet,  it  has 
seemed  to  me  that  so  to  hush  the  rustling  of 
the  silks  and  silence  the  babble  of  the  buds, 
as  they  call  the  chicks  of  a  new  season,  and 
light  up  the  flame  of  romance  in  cold  hearts, 
in  desolate  ones,  in  old  burnt-out  ones,  — 
like  mine,  I  was  going  to  say,  but  I  won't, 
for  it  is  n't  so,  and  you  may  laugh  to  hear  me 
say  it  is  n't  so,  if  you  like,  —  was  perhaps 
better  than  to  be  remembered  a  few  hundred 
years  by  a  few  perfect  stanzas,  when  your 
gravestone  is  standing  aslant,  and  your  name 
is  covered  over  with  a  lichen  as  big  as  a 
militia  colonel's  cockade,  and  nobody  knows 
or  cares  enough  about  you  to  scrape  it  off 
and  set  the  tipsy  old  slate-stone  upright 
again. 

—  I  said  nothing  in  reply  to  this,  for  I  was 
thinking  of  a  sweet  singer  to  whose  voice  I 
had  listened  in  its  first  freshness,  and  which 
is  now  only  an  echo  in  my  memory.  If  any 
reader  of  the  periodical  in  which  these  con 
versations  are  recorded  can  remember  so  far 
back  as  the  first  year  of  its  publication,  he 
will  find  among  the  papers  contributed  by 
a  friend  not  yet  wholly  forgotten  a  few 
verses,  lively  enough  in  their  way,  headed 


162  THE  POET  AT 

"  The  Boys."  The  sweet  singer  was  one  of 
this  company  of  college  classmates,  the  con- 
stancy  of  whose  friendship  deserves  a  better 
tribute  than  the  annual  offerings,  kindly 
meant,  as  they  are,  which  for  many  years 
have  not  been  wanting  at  their  social  gath 
erings.  The  small  company  counts  many 
noted  personages  on  its  list,  as  is  well  known 
to  those  who  are  interested  in  such  local 
matters,  but  it  is  not  known  that  every  fifth 
man  of  the  whole  number  now  living  is  more 
or  less  of  a  poet,  —  using  that  word  with  a 
generous  breadth  of  significance.  But  it 
should  seem  that  the  divine  gift  it  implies 
is  more  freely  dispensed  than  some  others, 
for  while  there  are  (or  were,  for  one  has 
taken  his  Last  Degree)  eight  musical  quills, 
there  was  but  one  pair  of  lips  which  could 
claim  any  special  consecration  to  vocal  mel 
ody.  Not  that  one  that  should  undervalue 
the  half-recitative  of  doubtful  barytones,  or 
the  brilliant  escapades  of  slightly  unman- 
ageableya/seWos,  or  the  concentrated  efforts 
of  the  proprietors  of  two  or  three  effective 
notes,  who  may  be  observed  lying  in  wait  for 
them,  and  coming  down  on  them  with  all 
their  might,  and  the  look  on  their  counte 
nances  of  "  I  too  am  a  singer."  But  the 
voice  that  led  all,  and  that  all  loved  to  lis- 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  163 

ten  to,  the  voice  that  was  at  once  full,  rich, 
sweet,  penetrating,  expressive,  whose  ample 
overflow  drowned  all  the  imperfections  and 
made  up  for  all  the  shortcomings  of  the 
others,  is  silent  henceforth  forevermore  for 
all  earthly  listeners. 

And  these  were  the  lines  that  one  of 
"The  Boys,"  as  they  have  always  called 
themselves  for  ever  so  many  years,  read  at 
the  first  meeting  after  the  voice  which  had 
never  failed  them  was  hushed  in  the  stillness 
of  death. 

J.  A. 
1871. 

One  memory  trembles  on  our  lips  : 

It  throbs  in  every  breast ; 
In  tear-dimmed  eyes,  in  mirth's  eclipse, 

The  shadow  stands  confessed. 

O  silent  voice,  that  cheered  so  long 
Our  manhood's  marching  day, 

Without  thy  breath  of  heavenly  song, 
How  weary  seems  the  way ! 

Vain  every  pictured  phrase  to  tell 
Our  sorrowing  hearts'  desire  ; 

The  shattered  harp,  the  broken  shell, 
The  silent  unstrung  lyre  ; 


164  THE  POET  AT 

For  youth  was  round  us  while  he  sang; 

It  glowed  in  every  tone ; 
With  bridal  chimes  the  echoes  rang, 

And  made  the  past  our  own. 

O  blissful  dream  !  Our  nursery  joys 
We  know  must  have  an  end, 

But  love  and  friendship's  broken  toys 
May  God's  good  angels  mend  ! 

The  cheering  smile,  the  voice  of  mirth 
And  laughter's  gay  surprise 

That  please  the  children  born  of  earth, 
Why  deem  that  Heaven  denies  ? 

Methinks  in  that  refulgent  sphere 
That  knows  not  sun  or  moon, 

An  earth-born  saint  might  long  to  hear 
One  verse  of  "  Bonny  Boon  "  ; 

Or  walking  through  the  streets  of  gold 
In  Heaven's  unclouded  light, 

His  lips  recall  the  song  of  old 
And  hum  "  The  sky  is  bright." 


And  can  we  smile  when  thou  art  dead  ? 

Ah,  brothers,  even  so  ! 
The  rose  of  summer  will  be  red, 

In  spite  of  winter's  snow. 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  165 

Thou  wouldst  not  leave  us  all  in  gloom 

Because  thy  song  is  still, 
Nor  blight  the  banquet-garland's  bloom 

With  grief's  untimely  chill. 

The  sighing  wintry  winds  complain,  — 
The  singing  bird  has  flown,  — 

Hark  !  heard  I  not  that  ringing  strain, 
That  clear  celestial  tone  ? 

How  poor  these  pallid  phrases  seem, 

How  weak  this  tinkling  line, 
As  warbles  through  my  waking  dream 

That  angel  voice  of  thine  ! 

Thy  requiem  asks  a  sweeter  lay ; 

It  falters  on  my  tongue  ; 
For  all  we  vainly  strive  to  say, 

Thou  shouldst  thyself  have  sung  ! 


V. 

I  fear  that  I  have  done  injustice  in  my 
conversation  and  my  report  of  it  to  a  most 
worthy  and  promising  young  man  whom  I 
should  be  very  sorry  to  injure  in  any  way. 
Dr.  Benjamin  Franklin  got  hold  of  my  ac 
count  of  my  visit  to  him,  and  complained 
that  I  had  made  too  much  of  the  expres 
sion  he  used.  He  did  not  mean  to  say  that 


166  THE  POET  AT 

he  thought  I  was  suffering  from  the  rare 
disease  he  mentioned,  but  only  that  the  color 
reminded  him  of  it.  It  was  true  that  he 
had  shown  me  various  instruments,  among 
them  one  for  exploring  the  state  of  a  part 
by  means  of  a  puncture,  but  he  did  not 
propose  to  make  use  of  it  upon  my  person. 
In  short,  I  had  colored  the  story  so  as  to 
make  him  look  ridiculous. 

—  I  am  afraid  I  did,  —  I  said,  —  but 
was  n't  I  colored  myself  so  as  to  look  ridicu 
lous  ?  I  've  heard  it  said  that  people  with 
the  jaundice  see  everything  yellow  ;  perhaps 
I  saw  things  looking  a  little  queerly,  with 
that  black  and  blue  spot  I  could  n't  account 
for  threatening  to  make  a  colored  man  and 
brother  of  me.  But  I  am  sorry  if  I  have 
done  you  any  wrong.  I  hope  you  won't  lose 
any  patients  by  my  making  a  little  fun  of 
your  meters  and  scopes  and  contrivances. 
They  seem  so  odd  to  us  outside  people. 
Then  the  idea  of  being  bronzed  all  over  was 
such  an  alarming  suggestion.  But  I  did  not 
mean  to  damage  your  business,  which  I  trust 
is  now  considerable,  and  I  shall  certainly 
come  to  you  again  if  I  have  need  of  the  ser 
vices  of  a  physician.  Only  don't  mention 
the  names  of  any  diseases  in  English  or 
Latin  before  me  next  time.  I  dreamed  about 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  167 

cutis  cenea  half  the  night  after  I  came  to  see 
you. 

Dr.  Benjamin  took  my  apology  very  pleas 
antly.  He  did  not  want  to  be  touchy  about 
it,  he  said,  but  he  had  his  way  to  make  in 
the  world,  and  found  it  a  little  hard  at  first, 
as  most  young  men  did.  People  were  afraid 
to  trust  them,  no  matter  how  much  they 
knew.  One  of  the  old  doctors  asked  him  to 
come  in  and  examine  a  patient's  heart  for 
him  the  other  day.  He  went  with  him  ac 
cordingly,  and  when  they  stood  by  the  bed 
side,  he  offered  his  stethoscope  to  the  old 
doctor.  The  old  doctor  took  it  and  put  the 
wrong  end  to  his  ear  and  the  other  to  the 
patient's  chest,  and  kept  it  there  about  two 
minutes,  looking  all  the  time  as  wise  as  an 
old  owl.  Then  he,  Dr.  Benjamin,  took  it 
and  applied  it  properly,  and  made  out  where 
the  trouble  was  in  no  time  at  all.  But  what 
was  the  use  of  a  young  man's  pretending  to 
know  anything  in  the  presence  of  an  old 
owl  ?  I  saw  by  their  looks,  he  said,  that 
they  all  thought  /  used  the  stethoscope 
wrong  end  up,  and  was  nothing  but  a  'pren 
tice  hand  to  the  old  doctor. 

—  I  am  much  pleased  to  say  that  since 
Dr.  Benjamin  has  had  charge  of  a  dispen 
sary  district,  and  been  visiting  forty  or  fifty 


168  THE  POET  AT 

patients  a  day,  I  have  reason  to  think  he  has 
grown  a  great  deal  more  practical  than  when 
I  made  my  visit  to  his  office.  I  think  I  was 
probably  one  of  his  first  patients,  and  that 
he  naturally  made  the  most  of  me.  But  my 
second  trial  was  much  more  satisfactory.  I 
got  an  ugly  cut  from  the  carving-knife  in  an 
affair  with  a  goose  of  iron  constitution  in 
which  I  came  off  second  best.  I  at  once  ad 
journed  with  Dr.  Benjamin  to  his  small  office, 
and  put  myself  in  his  hands.  It  was  aston 
ishing  to  see  what  a  little  experience  of  mis 
cellaneous  practice  Jiad  done  for  him.  He 
did  not  ask  me  any  more  questions  about 
my  hereditary  predispositions  on  the  pater 
nal  and  maternal  sides.  He  did  not  exam 
ine  me  with  the  stethoscope  or  the  laryngo 
scope.  He  only  strapped  up  my  cut,  and 
informed  me  that  it  would  speedily  get  well 
by  the  "  first  intention,"  —  an  odd  phrase 
enough,  but  sounding  much  less  formidable 
than  cutis  wnea. 

I  am  afraid  I  have  had  something  of  the 
French  prejudice  which  embodies  itself  in 
the  maxim  "  young  surgeon,  old  physician." 
But  a  young  physician  who  has  been  taught 
by  great  masters  of  the  profession,  in  ample 
hospitals,  starts  in  his  profession  knowing 
more  than  some  old  doctors  have  learned  in 


THE  BEEAKFAST-TABLE.  169 

a  lifetime.  Give  him  a  little  time  to  get  the 
use  of  his  wits  in  emergencies,  and  to  know 
the  little  arts  that  do  so  much  for  a  patient's 
comfort,  —  just  as  you  give  a  young  sailor 
time  to  get  his  sea-legs  on  and  teach  his 
stomach  to  behave  itself,  —  and  he  will  do 
well  enough. 

The  old  Master  knows  ten  times  more 
about  this  matter  and  about  all  the  profes 
sions,  as  he  does  about  everything  else,  than 
I  do.  My  opinion  is  that  he  has  studied  two, 
if  not  three,  of  these  professions  in  a  regu 
lar  course.  I  don't  know  that  he  has  ever 
preached,  except  as  Charles  Lamb  said  Cole 
ridge  always  did,  for  when  he  gets  the  bit  in 
his  teeth  he  runs  away  with  the  conversation, 
and  if  he  only  took  a  text  his  talk  would  be 
a  sermon  ;  but  if  he  has  not  preached,  he 
has  made  a  study  of  theology,  as  many  lay 
men  do.  I  know  he  has  some  shelves  of  med 
ical  books  in  his  library,  and  has  ideas  on 
the  subject  of  the  healing  art.  He  confesses 
to  having  attended  law  lectures  and  having 
had  much  intercourse  with  lawyers.  So  he 
has  something  to  say  on  almost  any  subject 
that  happens  to  come  up.  I  told  him  my 
story  about  my  visit  to  the  young  doctor,  and 
asked  him  what  he  thought  of  youthful  prac 
titioners  in  general  and  of  Dr.  Benjamin  in 
particular. 


170  THE  POET  AT 

I  '11  tell  you  what,  —  the  Master  said,  — 
I  know  something  about  these  young  fellows 
that  come  home  with  their  heads  full  of 
"  science,"  as  they  call  it,  and  stick  up  their 
signs  to  tell  people  they  know  how  to  cure 
their  headaches  and  stomach-aches.  Science 
is  a  first-rate  piece  of  furniture  for  a  man's 
upper  chamber,  if  he  has  common  sense  on 
the  ground-floor.  But  if  a  man  has  n't  got 
plenty  of  good  common  sense,  the  more  sci 
ence  he  has  the  worse  for  his  patient. 

—  I  don't  know  that  I  see  exactly  how  it 
is  worse  for  the  patient,  —  I  said. 

—  Well,  I  '11  tell  you,  and  you  '11  find  it 's 
a  mighty  simple  matter.     When  a  person  is 
sick,  there  is  always  something  to  be  done 
for  him,  and  done  at  once.     If  it  is  only  to 
open  or  shut  a  window,  if  it  is  only  to  tell 
him  to  keep  on  doing  just  what  he  is  doing 
already,  it  wants  a  man  to  bring  his  mind 
right  down  to  the  fact  of  the  present  case 
and  its  immediate  needs.     Now  the  present 
case,  as  the  doctor  sees  it,  is  just  exactly  such 
a    collection    of    paltry  individual    facts   as 
never  was  before,  —  a  snarl  and  tangle  of 
special  conditions  which  it  is  his  business  to 
wind  as  much  thread  out  of  as  he  can.    It  is 
a  good  deal  as  when  a  painter  goes  to  take 
the  portrait  of   any  sitter  who    happens  to 


THE  BEEAKFAST-TABLE.  171 

send  for  him.  He  has  seen  just  such  noses 
and  just  such  eyes  and  just  such  mouths,  but 
he  never  saw  exactly  such  a  face  before,  and 
his  business  is  with  that  and  no  other  per 
son's,  —  with  the  features  of  the  worthy 
father  of  a  family  before  him,  and  not  with 
the  portraits  he  has  seen  in  galleries  or  books, 
or  Mr.  Copley's  grand  pictures  of  the  fine  old 
Tories,  or  the  Apollos  and  Jupiters  of  Greek 
sculpture.  It  is  the  same  thing  with  the  pa 
tient.  His  disease  has  features  of  its  own ; 
there  never  was  and  never  will  be  another 
case  in  all  respects  exactly  like  it.  If  a  doc 
tor  has  science  without  common  sense,  he 
treats  a  fever,  but  not  this  man's  fever.  If 
he  has  common  sense  without  science,  he 
treats  this  man's  fever  without  knowing  the 
general  laws  that  govern  all  fevers  and  all 
vital  movements.  I  '11  tell  you  what  saves 
these  last  fellows.  Thejr  go  for  weakness 
whenever  they  see  it,  with  stimulants  and 
strengthened,  and  they  go  for  overaction, 
heat,  and  high  pulse,  and  the  rest,  with  cool 
ing  and  reducing  remedies.  That  is  three 
quarters  of  medical  practice.  The  other 
quarter  wants  science  and  common  sense  too. 
But  the  men  that  have  science  only,  begin 
too  far  back,  and,  before  they  get  as  far  as 
the  case  in  hand,  the  patient  has  very  likely 


172  THE  POET  AT 

gone  to  visit  his  deceased  relatives.  You 
remember  Thomas  Prince's  "  Chronological 
History  of  New  England,"  I  suppose?  He 
begins,  you  recollect,  with  Adam,  and  has  to 
work  down  five  thousand  six  hundred  and 
twenty-four  years  before  he  gets  to  the  Pil 
grim  fathers  and  the  Mayflower.  It  was  all 
very  well,  only  it  did  n't  belong  there,  but 
got  in  the  way  of  something  else.  So  it  is 
with  "  science "  out  of  place.  By  far  the 
larger  part  of  the  facts  of  structure  and  func 
tion  you  find  in  the  books  of  anatomy  and 
physiology  have  no  immediate  application  to 
the  daily  duties  of  the  practitioner.  You 
must  learn  systematically,  for  all  that ;  it  is 
the  easiest  way  and  the  only  way  that  takes 
hold  of  the  memory,  except  mere  empirical 
repetition,  like  that  of  the  handicraftsman. 
Did  you  ever  see  one  of  those  Japanese  fig 
ures  with  the  points  for  acupuncture  marked 
upon  it  ? 

—  I  had  to  own  that  my  schooling  had 
left  out  that  piece  of  information. 

Well,  I  '11  tell  you  about  it.  You  see  they 
have  a  way  of  pushing  long,  slender  needles 
into  you  for  the  cure  of  rheumatism  and 
other  complaints,  and  it  seems  there  is  a 
choice  of  spots  for  the  operation,  though  it 
is  very  strange  how  little  mischief  it  does  in 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  173 

a  good  many  places  one  would  think  unsafe 
to  meddle  with.  So  they  had  a  doll  made, 
and  marked  the  spots  where  they  had  put  in 
needles  without  doing  any  harm.  They  must 
have  had  accidents  from  sticking  the  needles 
into  the  wrong  places  now  and  then,  but  I 
suppose  they  did  n't  say  a  great  deal  about 
those.  After  a  time,  say  a  few  centuries  of 
experience,  they  had  their  doll  all  spotted 
over  with  safe  places  for  sticking  in  the 
needles.  That  is  their  way  of  registering 
practical  knowledge.  We,  on  the  other 
hand,  study  the  structure  of  the  body  as  a 
whole,  systematically,  and  have  no  difficulty 
at  all  in  remembering  the  track  of  the  great 
vessels  and  nerves,  and  knowing  just  what 
tracks  will  be  safe  and  what  unsafe.  It  is 
just  the  same  thing  with  the  geologists. 
Here  is  a  man  close  by  us  boring  for  water 
through  one  of  our  ledges,  because  somebody 
else  got  water  somewhere  else  in  that  way ; 
and  a  person  who  knows  geology  or  ought  to 
know  it,  because  he  has  given  his  life  to  it, 
tells  me  he  might  as  well  bore  there  for 
lager-beer  as  for  water. 

—  I  thought  we  had  had  enough  of  this 
particular  matter,  and  that  I  should  like  to 
hear  what  the  Master  had  to  say  about  the 
three  professions  he  knew  something  about, 
each  compared  with  the  others. 


174  THE  POET  AT 

What  is  your  general  estimate  of  doctors, 
lawyers,  and  ministers  ?  —  said  I. 

-  Wait  a  minute,  till  I  have  got  through 
with  your  first  question,  —  said  the  Master. 
—  One  thing  at  a  time.  You  asked  me  about 
the  young  doctors,  and  about  our  young  doc 
tor.  They  come  home  tres  bien  chausses,  as 
a  Frenchman  would  say,  mighty  well  shod 
with  professional  knowledge.  But  when  they 
begin  walking  round  among  their  poor  pa 
tients,  —  they  don't  commonly  start  with 
millionnaires,  —  they  find  that  their  new 
shoes  of  scientific  acquirements  have  got  to 
be  broken  in  just  like  a  pair  of  boots  or  bro- 
gans.  I  don't  know  that  I  have  put  it  quite 
strong  enough.  Let  me  try  again.  You  've 
seen  those  fellows  at  the  circus  that  get  up 
on  horseback  so  big  that  you  wonder  how 
they  could  climb  into  the  saddle.  But  pretty 
soon  they  throw  off  their  outside  coat,  and 
the  next  minute  another  one,  and  then  the 
one  under  that,  and  so  they  keep  peeling  off 
one  garment  after  another  till  people  begin 
to  look  queer  and  think  they  are  going  too 
far  for  strict  propriety.  Well,  that  is  the 
way  a  fellow  with  a  real  practical  turn  serves 
a  good  many  of  his  scientific  wrappers,  — 
flings  'em  off  for  other  people  to  pick  up, 
and  goes  right  at  the  work  of  curing  stom- 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  175 

ach-aehes  and  all  the  other  little  mean  unsci 
entific  complaints  that  make  up  the  larger 
part  of  every  doctor's  business.  I  think  our 
Dr.  Benjamin  is  a  worthy  young  man,  and 
if  you  are  in  need  of  a  doctor  at  any  time  I 
hope  you  will  go  to  him ;  and  if  you  come 
off  without  harm,  I  will  —  recommend  some 
other  friend  to  try  him. 

—  I  thought  he  was  going  to  say  he  would 
try  him  in  his  own  person,  but  the  Master  is 
not  fond  of  committing  himself. 

Now,  I  will  answer  your  other  question, 
he  said.  —  The  lawyers  are  the  cleverest 
men,  the  ministers  are  the  most  learned,  and 
the  doctors  are  the  most  sensible. 

The  lawyers  are  a  picked  lot,  "  first  schol 
ars  "  and  the  like,  but  their  business  is  as 
unsympathetic  as  Jack  Ketch's.  There  is 
nothing  humanizing  in  their  relations  with 
their  fellow-creatures.  They  go  for  the  side 
that  retains  them.  They  defend  the  man 
they  know  to  be  a  rogue,  and  not  very  rarely 
throw  suspicion  on  the  man  they  know  to  be 
innocent.  Mind  you,  I  am  not  finding  fault 
with  them  ;  every  side  of  a  case  has  a  right 
to  the  best  statement  it  admits  of ;  but  I  say 
it  does  not  tend  to  make  them  sympathetic. 
Suppose  in  a  case  of  Fever  vs.  Patient,  the 
doctor  should  side  with  either  party  accord- 


176  THE  POET  AT 

ing  to  whether  the  old  miser  or  his  expectant 
heir  was  his  employer.  Suppose  the  minis 
ter  should  side  with  the  Lord  or  the  Devil, 
according  to  the  salary  offered  and  other  in 
cidental  advantages,  where  the  soul  of  a  sin 
ner  was  in  question.  You  can  see  what  a 
piece  of  work  it  would  make  of  their  sympa 
thies.  But  the  lawyers  are  quicker  witted 
than  either  of  the  other  professions,  and 
abler  men  generally.  They  are  good-na 
tured,  or,  if  they  quarrel,  their  quarrels  are 
above-board.  I  don't  think  they  are  as  ac 
complished  as  the  ministers,  but  they  have  a 
way  of  cramming  with  special  knowledge  for 
a  case  which  leaves  a  certain  shallow  sedi 
ment  of  intelligence  in  their  memories  about 
a  good  many  things.  They  are  apt  to  talk 
law  in  mixed  company,  and  they  have  a  way 
of  looking  round  when  they  make  a  point, 
as  if  they  were  addressing  a  jury,  that  is 
mighty  aggravating,  as  I  once  had  occasion 
to  see  when  one  of  'em,  and  a  pretty  famous 
one,  put  me  on  the  witness-stand  at  a  dinner 
party  once. 

The  ministers  come  next  in  point  of  talent. 
They  are  far  more  curious  and  widely  inter 
ested  outside  of  their  own  calling  than  either 
of  the  other  professions.  I  like  to  talk  with 
'em.  They  are  interesting  men,  full  of  good 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  177 

feelings,  hard  workers,  always  foremost  in 
good  deeds,  and  on  the  whole  the  most  effi 
cient  civilizing  class,  working  downwards 
from  knowledge  to  ignorance,  that  is,  —  not 
so  much  upwards,  perhaps,  —  that  we  have. 
The  trouble  is,  that  so  many  of  'em  work  in 
harness,  and  it  is  pretty  sure  to  chafe  some 
where.  They  feed  us  on  canned  meats 
mostly.  They  cripple  our  instincts  and  rea 
son,  and  give  us  a  crutch  of  doctrine.  I 
have  talked  with  a  great  many  of  'em  of  all 
sorts  of  belief,  and  I  don't  think  they  are 
quite  so  easy  in  their  minds,  the  greater 
number  of  them,  nor  so  clear  in  their  con 
victions,  as  one  would  think  to  hear  'em  lay 
down  the  law  in  the  pulpit.  They  used  to 
lead  the  intelligence  of  their  parishes  ;  now 
they  do  pretty  well  if  they  keep  up  with  it, 
and  they  are  very  apt  to  lag  behind  it. 
Then  they  must  have  a  colleague.  The  old 
minister  thinks  he  can  hold  to  his  old  course, 
sailing  right  into  the  wind's  eye  of  human 
nature,  as  straight  as  that  famous  old  skipper 
John  Bunyan ;  the  young  minister  falls  off 
three  or  four  points  and  catches  the  breeze 
that  left  the  old  man's  sails  all  shivering. 
By  and  by  the  congregation  will  get  ahead 
of  him,  and  then  it  must  have  another  new 
skipper.  The  priest  holds  his  own  pretty 


178  THE  POET  AT 

well;  the  minister  is  coming  down  every 
generation  nearer  and  nearer  to  the  common 
level  of  the  useful  citizen,  — no  oracle  at  all, 
but  a  man  of  more  than  average  moral  in 
stincts,  who,  if  he  knows  anything,  knows 
how  little  he  knows.  The  ministers  are 
good  talkers,  only  the  struggle  between  na 
ture  and  grace  makes  some  of  'em  a  little 

O 

awkward  occasionally.  The  women  do  their 
best  to  spoil  'em,  as  they  do  the  poets ;  you 
find  it  very  pleasant  to  be  spoiled,  no  doubt ; 
so  do  they.  Now  and  then  one  of  'em  goes 
over  the  dam  ;  no  wonder,  they  're  always  in 
the  rapids. 

By  this  time  our  three  ladies  had  their 
faces  all  turned  toward  the  speaker,  like  the 
weathercocks  in  a  northeaster,  and  I  thought 
it  best  to  switch  off  the  talk  on  to  another 
rail. 

How  about  the  doctors  ?  —  I  said. 

—  Theirs  is  the  least  learned  of  the  pro 
fessions,  in  this  country  at  least.  They  have 
not  half  the  general  culture  of  the  lawyers, 
nor  a  quarter  of  that  of  the  ministers.  I 
rather  think,  though,  they  are  more  agree 
able  to  the  common  run  of  people  than  the 
men  with  black  coats  or  the  men  with  green 
bags.  People  can  swear  before  'em  if  they 
want  to,  and  they  can't  very  well  before 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  179 

ministers.  I  don't  care  whether  they  want 
to  swear  or  not,  they  don't  want  to  be  on 
their  good  behavior.  Besides,  the  minister 
has  a  little  smack  of  the  sexton  about  him  ; 
he  comes  when  people  are  in  extremis,  but 
they  don't  send  for  him  every  time  they 
make  a  slight  moral  slip,  —  tell  a  lie  for  in 
stance,  or  smuggle  a  silk  dress  through  the 
custom-house  ;  but  they  call  in  the  doctor 
when  a  child  is  cutting  a  tooth  or  gets  a 
splinter  in  its  finger.  So  it  does  n't  mean 
much  to  send  for  him,  only  a  pleasant  chat 
about  the  news  of  the  day ;  for  putting  the 
baby  to  rights  does  n't  take  long.  Besides, 
everybody  doesn't  like  to  talk  about  the 
next  world ;  people  are  modest  in  their  de 
sires,  and  find  this  world  as  good  as  they  de 
serve  ;  but  everybody  loves  to  talk  physic. 
Everybody  loves  to  hear  of  strange  cases ; 
people  are  eager  to  tell  the  doctor  of  the 
wonderful  cures  they  have  heard  of ;  they 
want  to  know  what  is  the  matter  with  some 
body  or  other  who  is  said  to  be  suffering 
from  "  a  complication  of  diseases,"  and 
above  all  to  get  a  hard  name,  Greek  or 
Latin,  for  some  complaint  which  sounds  al 
together  too  commonplace  in  plain  English. 
If  you  will  only  call  a  headache  a  Cephalal- 
gia,  it  acquires  dignity  at  once,  and  a  patient 


180  THE  POET  AT 

becomes  rather  proud  of  it.  So  I  think  doc 
tors  are  generally  welcome  in  most  compa 
nies. 

In  old  times,  when  people  were  more 
afraid  of  the  Devil  and  of  witches  than  they 
are  now,  they  liked  to  have  a  priest  or  a 
minister  somewhere  near  to  scare  'em  off  ; 
but  nowadays,  if  you  could  find  an  old  wo 
man  that  would  ride  round  the  room  on  a 
broomstick,  Barnum  would  build  an  amphi 
theatre  to  exhibit  her  in  ;  and  if  he  could 
come  across  a  young  imp,  with  hoofs,  tail, 
and  budding  horns,  a  lineal  descendant  of 
one  of  those  "  daemons  "  which  the  good  peo 
ple  of  Gloucester  fired  at,  and  were  fired  at 
by  "  for  the  best  part  of  a  month  together  " 
in  the  year  1692,  the  great  showman  would 
have  him  at  any  cost  for  his  museum  or  me 
nagerie.  Men  are  cowards,  sir,  and  are 
driven  by  fear  as  the  sovereign  motive. 
Men  are  idolaters,  and  want  something  to 
look  at  and  kiss  and  hug,  or  throw  them 
selves  down  before  ;  they  always  did,  they 
always  will;  and  if  you  don't  make  it  of 
wood,  you  must  make  it  of  words,  which  are 
just  as  much  used  for  idols  as  promissory 
notes  are  used  for  values.  The  ministers 
have  a  hard  time  of  it  without  bell  and  book 
and  holy  water  ;  they  are  dismounted  men  in 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  181 

armor  since  Luther  cut  their  saddle-girths, 
and  you  can  see  they  are  quietly  taking  off 
one  piece  of  iron  after  another  until  some  of 
the  best  of  'em  are  fighting  the  devil  (not 
the  zoological  Devil  with  the  big  D)  with 
the  sword  of  the  Spirit,  and  precious  little 
else  in  the  way  of  weapons  of  offence  or  de 
fence.  But  we  could  n't  get  on  without  the 
spiritual  brotherhood,  whatever  became  of 
our  special  creeds.  There  is  a  genius  for 
religion,  just  as  there  is  for  painting  or 
sculpture.  It  is  half-sister  to  the  genius  for 
music,  and  has  some  of  the  features  which 
remind  us  of  earthly  love.  But  it  lifts  us 
all  by  its  mere  presence.  To  see  a  good 
man  and  hear  his  voice  once  a  week  would 
be  reason  enough  for  building  churches  and 
pulpits.  —  The  Master  stopped  all  at  once, 
and  after  about  half  a  minute  laughed  his 
pleasant  laugh. 

What  is  it  ?  —  I  asked  him. 

I  was  thinking  of  the  great  coach  and 
team  that  is  carrying  us  fast  enough,  I  don't 
know  but  too  fast,  somewhere  or  other. 
The  D.  D.'s  used  to  be  the  leaders,  but  now 
they  are  the  wheel-horses.  It 's  pretty  hard 
to  tell  how  much  they  pull,  but  we  know 
they  can  hold  back  like  the  — 

—  When  we  're  going  down  hill,  —  I  said, 


182  THE  POET  AT 

as  neatly  as  if  I  had  been  a  High-Church 
curate  trained  to  snap  at  the  last  word  of 
the  response,  so  that  you  couldn't  wedge 
in  the  tail  of  a  comma  between  the  end  of 
the  congregation's  closing  syllable  and  the 
beginning  of  the  next  petition.  They  do  it 
well,  but  it  always  spoils  my  devotion.  To 
save  my  life,  I  can't  help  watching  them,  as 
I  watch  to  see  a  duck  dive  at  the  flash  of  a 
gun,  and  that  is  not  what  I  go  to  church 
for.  It  is  a  juggler's  trick,  and  there  is  no 
more  religion  in  it  than  in  catching  a  ball 
on  the  fly. 

I  was  looking  at  our  Scheherezade  the 
other  day,  and  thinking  what  a  pity  it  was 
that  -she  had  never  had  fair  play  in  the 
world.  I  wish  I  knew  more  of  her  history. 
There  is  one  way  of  learning  it,  —  making 
love  to  her.  I  wonder  whether  she  would 
let  me  and  like  it.  It  is  an  absurd  thing, 
and  I  ought  not  to  confess,  but  I  tell  you 
and  you  only,  Beloved,  my  heart  gave  a  per 
ceptible  jump  when  it  heard  the  whisper  of 
that  possibility  overhead  I  Every  day  has 
its  ebb  and  flow,  but  such  a  thought  as  that 
is  like  one  of  those  tidal  waves  they  talk 
about,  that  rolls  in  like  a  great  wall  and 
overtops  and  drowns  out  all  your  landmarks, 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  183 

and  you,  too,  if  you  don't  mind  what  you  are 
about  and  stand  ready  to  run  or  climb  or 
swim.  Not  quite  so  bad  as  that,  though, 
this  time.  I  take  an  interest  in  our  Sche- 
herezade.  I  am  glad  she  did  n't  smile  on 
the  pipe  and  the  Bohemian-looking  fellow 
that  finds  the  best  part  of  his  life  in  sueking 
at  it.  A  fine  thing,  is  n't  it,  for  a  young 
woman  to  marry  a  man  who  will  hold  her 

"  Something-  better  than  his  dog,  a  little  dearer  than  his 
horse," 

but  not  quite  so  good  as  his  meerschaum? 
It  is  n't  for  me  to  throw  stones,  though,  who 
have  been  a  Nicotian  a  good  deal  more  than 
half  my  days.  Cigar-stump  out  now,  and 
consequently  have  become  very  bitter  on 
more  persevering  sinners.  I  say  I  take  an 
interest  in  our  Scheherezade,  but  I  rather 
think  it  is  more  paternal  than  anything  else, 
though  my  heart  did  give  that  jump.  It  has 
jumped  a  good  many  times  without  anything 
very  remarkable  coming  of  it. 

This  visit  to  the  Observatory  is  going  to 
bring  us  all,  or  most  of  us,  together  in  a  new 
way,  and  it  would  n't  be  very  odd  if  some  of 
us  should  become  better  acquainted  than  we 
ever  have  been.  There  is  a  chance  for  the 
elective  affinities.  What  tremendous  forces 
they  are,  if  two  subjects  of  them  come 


184  TUE  POET  AT 

within  range !  There  lies  a  bit  of  iron. 
All  the  dynamic  agencies  of  the  universe  are 
pledged  to  hold  it  just  in  that  position,  and 
there  it  will  lie  until  it  becomes  a  heap  of 
red-brown  rust.  But  see,  I  hold  a  magnet 
to  it,  —  it  looks  to  you  like  just  such  a  bit 
of  iron  as  the  other,  —  and  lo !  it  leaves 
them  all,  —  the  tugging  of  the  mighty 
earth ;  of  the  ghostly  moon  that  walks  in 
white,  trailing  the  snaky  waves  of  the  ocean 
after  her ;  of  the  awful  sun,  twice  as  large 
as  a  sphere  that  the  whole  orbit  of  the  moon 
would  but  just  girdle,  —  it  leaves  the  wres 
tling  of  all  their  forces,  which  are  at  a  dead 
lock  with  each  other,  all  fighting  for  it,  and 
springs  straight  to  the  magnet.  What  a 
lucky  thing  it  is  for  well-conducted  persons 
that  the  maddening  elective  affinities  don't 
come  into  play  in  full  force  very  often  ! 

I  suppose  I  am  making  a  good  deal  more 
of  our  prospective  visit  than  it  deserves.  It 
must  be  because  I  have  got  it  into  my  head 
that  we  are  bound  to  have  some  kind  of  sen 
timental  outbreak  amongst  us,  and  that  this 
will  give  a  chance  for  advances  on  the  part 
of  anybody  disposed  in  that  direction.  A 
little  change  of  circumstance  often  hastens 
on  a  movement  that  has  been  long  in  prepa 
ration.  A  chemist  will  show  you  a  flask 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  185 

containing  a  clear  liquid  ;  he  will  give  it  a 
shake  or  two,  and  the  whole  contents  of  the 
flask  will  become  solid  in  an  instant.  Or 
you  may  lay  a  little  heap  of  iron-filings  on 
a  sheet  of  paper  with  a  magnet  beneath  it, 
and  they  will  be  quiet  enough  as  they  are, 
but  give  the  paper  a  slight  jar  and  the 
specks  of  metal  will  suddenly  find  their  way 
to  the  north  or  the  south  pole  of  the  mag- 
iiet  and  take  a  definite  shape  not  unpleasing 
to  contemplate,  and  curiously  illustrating 
the  laws  of  attraction,  antagonism,  and  av 
erage,  by  which  the  worlds,  conscious  and 
unconscious,  are  alike  governed.  So  with 
our  little  party,  with  any  little  party  of  per 
sons  who  have  got  used  to  each  other  ;  leave 
them  undisturbed  and  they  might  remain  in 
a  state  of  equilibrium  forever  ;  but  let  any 
thing  give  them  a  shake  or  a  jar,  and  the 
long-striving  but  hindered  affinities  come  all 
at  once  into  play  and  finish  the  work  of  a 
year  in  five  minutes. 

We  were  all  a  good  deal  excited  by  the 
anticipation  of  this  visit.  The  Capitalist, 
who  for  the  most  part  keeps  entirely  to  him 
self,  seemed  to  take  an  interest  in  it  and 
joined  the  group  in  the  parlor  who  were 
making  arrangements  as  to  the  details  of  the 
eventful  expedition,  which  was  very  soon  to 


186  THE  POET  AT 

take  place.  The  Young  Girl  was  full  of  en 
thusiasm  ;  she  is  one  of  those  young  persons, 
I  think,  who  are  impressible,  and  of  neces 
sity  depressible  when  their  nervous  systems 
are  overtasked,  but  elastic,  recovering  easily 
from  mental  worries  and  fatigues,  and  only 
wanting  a  little  change  of  their  conditions  to 
get  back  their  bloom  and  cheerfulness.  I 
could  not  help  being  pleased  to  see  how 
much  of  the  child  was  left  in  her,  after  all 
the  drudgery  she  had  been  through.  What 
is  there  that  youth  will  not  endure  and  tri 
umph  over  ?  Here  she  was  ;  her  story  for 
the  week  was  done  in  good  season  ;  she  had 
got  rid  of  her  villain  by  a  new  and  original 
catastrophe ;  she  had  received  a  sum  of 
money  for  an  extra  string  of  verses,  —  pain 
fully  small,  it  is  true,  but  it  would  buy  her 
a  certain  ribbon  she  wanted  for  the  great  ex 
cursion  ;  and  now  her  eyes  sparkled  so  that 
I  forgot  how  tired  and  hollow  they  some 
times  looked  when  she  had  been  sitting  up 
half  the  night  over  her  endless  manuscript. 

The  morning  of  the  day  we  had  looked 
forward  to  promised  as  good  an  evening  as 
we  could  wish.  The  Capitalist,  whose  cour 
teous  and  bl,and  demeanor  would  never  have 
su<r<rested  the  thought  that  he  was  a  robber 

oo  o 

and  an  enemy  of   his  race,  who  was  to  be 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  187 

trampled  underfoot  by  the  beneficent  regen 
erators  of  the  social  order  as  preliminary  to 
the  universal  reign  of  peace  on  earth  and 
good-will  to  men,  astonished  us  all  with  a 
proposal  to  escort  the  three  ladies  and  pro 
cure  a  carriage  for  their  conveyance.  The 
Lady  thanked  him  in  a  very  cordial  way,  but 
said  she  thought  nothing  of  the  walk.  The 
Landlady  looked  disappointed  at  this  an 
swer.  For  her  part  she  was  on  her  legs  all 
day  and  should  be  glad  enough  to  ride,  if  so 
be  he  was  going  to  have  a  carriage  at  any 
rate.  It  would  be  a  sight  pleasanter  than  to 
trudge  afoot,  but  she  would  n't  have  him  go 
to  the  expense  on  her  account.  —  Don't  men 
tion  it,  madam,  —  said  the  Capitalist,  in  a 
generous  glow  of  enthusiasm.  As  for  the 
Young  Girl,  she  did  not  often  get  a  chance 
for  a  drive,  and  liked  the  idea  of  it  for  its 
own  sake,  as  children  do,  and  she  insisted 
that  the  Lady  should  go  in  the  carriage  with 
her.  So  it  was  settled  that  the  Capitalist 
should  take  the  three  ladies  in  a  carriage, 
and  the  rest  of  us  go  on  foot. 

The  evening  behaved  as  it  was  bound  to 
do  on  so  momentous  an  occasion.  The  Cap 
italist  was  dressed  with  almost  suspicious 
nicety.  We  pedestrians  could  not  help  wait 
ing  to  see  them  off,  and  I  thought  he  handed 


188  THE  POET  AT 

the  ladies  into  the  carriage  with  the  air  of  a 
French  marquis. 

I  walked  with  Dr.  Benjamin  and  That 
Boy,  and  we  had  to  keep  the  little  imp  on 
the  trot  a  good  deal  of  the  way  in  order  not 
to  be  too  long  behind  the  carriage  party. 
The  Member  of  the  Haouse  walked  with  our 
two  dummies,  —  I  beg  their  pardon,  I  mean 
the  Register  of  Deeds  and  the  Salesman. 

The  Man  of  Letters,  hypothetically  so 
called,  walked  by  himself,  smoking  a  short 
pipe  which  was  very  far  from  suggesting 
the  spicy  breezes  that  blow  soft  from  Cey 
lon's  isle. 

I  suppose  everybody  who  reads  this  paper 
has  visited  one  or  more  observatories,  and  of 
course  knows  all  about  them.  But  as  it  may 
hereafter  be  translated  into  some  foreign 
tongue  and  circulated  among  barbarous,  but 
rapidly  improving  people,  people  who  have 
as  yet  no  astronomers  among  them,  it  may 
be  well  to  give  a  little  notion  of  what  kind 
of  place  an  observatory  is. 

To  begin  then  :  a  deep  and  solid  stone 
foundation  is  laid  in  the  earth,  and  a  mas 
sive  pier  of  masonry  is  built  up  on  it.  A 
heavy  block  of  granite  forms  the  summit  of 
this  pier,  and  on  this  block  rests  the  equato 
rial  telescope.  Around  this  structure  a  cir- 


THE  BBEAKFAST-TABLE.  189 

cular  tower  is  built,  with  two  or  more  floors 
which  come  close  up  to  the  pier,  but  do  not 
touch  it  at  any  point.  It  is  crowned  with  a 
hemispherical  dome,  which,  I  may  remark, 
half  realizes  the  idea  of  my  egg-shell  studio. 
This  dome  is  cleft  from  its  base  to  its  sum 
mit  by  a  narrow,  ribbon-like  opening,  through 
which  is  seen  the  naked  sky.  It  revolves  011 
cannon-balls,  so  easily  that  a  single  hand  can 
move  it,  and  thus  the  opening  may  be 
turned  towards  any  point  of  the  compass. 
As  the  telescope  can  be  raised  or  depressed 
so  as  to  be  directed  to  any  elevation  from  the 
horizon  to  the  zenith,  and  turned  around  the 
entire  circle  with  the  dome,  it  can  be  pointed 
to  any  part  of  the  heavens.  But  as  the  star 
or  other  celestial  object  is  always  apparently 
moving,  in  consequence  of  the  real  rotatory 
movement  of  the  earth,  the  telescope  is  made 
to  follow  it  automatically  by  an  ingenious 
clock-work  arrangement.  No  place,  short  of 
the  temple  of  the  living  God,  can  be  more 
solemn.  The  jars  of  the  restless  life  around 
it  do  not  disturb  the  serene  intelligence  of 
the  half -reasoning  apparatus.  Nothing  can 
stir  the  massive  pier  but  the  shocks  that 
shake  the  solid  earth  itseif .  When  an  earth 
quake  thrills  the  planet,  the  massive  turret 
shudders  with  the  shuddering  rocks  on  which 


190  THE  POET  AT 

it  rests,  but  it  pays  no  heed  to  the  wildest 
tempest,  and  while  the  heavens  are  convulsed 
and  shut  from  the  eye  of  the  far-seeing  in 
strument  it  waits  without  a  tremor  for  the 
blue  sky  to  come  back.  It  is  the  type  of  the 
true  and  steadfast  man  of  the  Roman  poet, 
whose  soul  remains  unmoved  while  the  fir 
mament  cracks  and  tumbles  about  him.  It  is 
the  material  image  of  the  Christian  ;  his 
heart  resting  on  the  Rock  of  Ages,  his  eye 
fixed  on  the  brighter  world  above. 

I  did  not  say  all  this  while  we  were  look 
ing  round  among  these  wonders,  quite  new 
to  many  of  us.  People  don't  talk  in  straight- 
off  sentences  like  that.  They  stumble  and 
stop,  or  get  interrupted,  change  a  word,  be 
gin  again,  miss  connections  of  verbs  and 
nouns,  and  so  on,  till  they  blunder  out  their 
meaning.  But  I  did  let  fall  a  word  or  two, 
showing  the  impression  the  celestial  labora 
tory  produced  upon  me.  I  rather  think  I 
must  own  to  the  "  Rock  of  Ages  "  compari 
son.  Thereupon  the  "  Man  of  Letters,"  so 
called,  took  his  pipe  from  his  mouth,  and 
said  that  he  did  n't  go  in  "for  sentiment 
and  that  sort  of  thing.  Gush  was  played 
out." 

The  Member  of  the  Haouse,  who,  as  I 
think,  is  not  wanting  in  that  homely  good 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  191 

sense  which  one  often  finds  in  plain  people 
from  the  huckleberry  districts,  but  who  evi 
dently  supposes  the  last  speaker  to  be  what 
he  calls  "  a  tahleiited  malm,"  looked  a  little 
puzzled.  My  remark  seemed  natural  and 
harmless  enough  to  him,  I  suppose,  but  I 
had  been  distinctly  snubbed,  and  the  Mem 
ber  of  the  Haouse  thought  I  must  defend 
myself,  as  is  customary  in  the  deliberative 
body  to  which  he  belongs,  when  one  gentle 
man  accuses  another  gentleman  of  mental 
weakness  or  obliquity.  I  could  not  make 
up  my  mind  to  oblige  him  at  that  moment 
by  showing  fight.  I  suppose  that  would  have 
pleased  my  assailant,  as  I  don't  think  he  has 
a  great  deal  to  lose,  and  might  have  made 
a  little  capital  out  of  me  if  he  could  have 
got  a  laugh  out  of  the  Member  or  either  of 
the  dummies,  —  I  beg  their  pardon  again,  I 
mean  the  two  undemonstrative  boarders. 
But  I  will  tell  you,  Beloved,  just  what  I 
think  about  this  matter. 

We  poets,  you  know,  are  much  given  to 
indulging  in  sentiment,  which  is  a  mode  of 
consciousness  at  a  discount  just  now  with 
the  new  generation  of  analysts  who  are 
throwing  everything  into  their  crucibles. 
Now  we  must  not  claim  too  much  for  senti 
ment.  It  does  not  go  a  great  way  in  decid- 


192  THE  POET  AT 

ing  questions  of  arithmetic,  or  algebra,  or 
geometry.  Two  and  two  will  undoubtedly 
make  four,  irrespective  of  the  emotions  or 
other  idiosyncrasies  of  the  calculator ;  and 
the  three  angles  of  a  triangle  insist  on  being- 
equal  to  two  right  angles,  in  the  face  of  the 
most  impassioned  rhetoric  or  the  most  in 
spired  verse.  But  inasmuch  as  religion  and 
law  and  the  whole  social  order  of  civilized 
society,  to  say  nothing  of  literature  and  art, 
are  so  founded  on  and  pervaded  by  senti 
ment  that  they  would  all  go  to  pieces  with 
out  it,  it  is  a  word  not  to  be  used  too  lightly 
in  passing  judgment,  as  if  it  were  an  element 
to  be  thrown  out  or  treated  with  small  con 
sideration.  Eeason  may  be  the  lever,  but 
sentiment  gives  you  the  fulcrum  and  the 
place  to  stand  on  if  you  want  to  move  the 
world.  Even  "  sentimentality,"  which  is  sen 
timent  overdone,  is  better  than  that  affecta 
tion  of  superiority  to  human  weakness  which 
is  only  tolerable  as  one  of  the  stage  proper 
ties  of  full-blown  dandyism,  and  is,  at  best, 
but  half-blown  cynicism;  which  participle 
and  noun  you  can  translate,  if  you  happen 
to  remember  the  derivation  of  the  last  of 
them,  by  a  single  familiar  word.  There  is  a 
great  deal  of  false  sentiment  in  the  world,  as 
there  is  of  bad  logic  and  erroneous  doctrine ; 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  193 

but  it  is  very  much  less  disagreeable  to  hear 
a  young  poet  overdo  his  emotions,  or  even 
deceive  himself  about  them,  than  to  hear  a 
caustic-epithet  flinger  repeating  such  words 
as  "  sentimentality  "  and  "  entusymusy,"  — 
one  of  the  least  admirable  of  Lord  Byron's 
bequests  to  our  language,  —  for  the  purpose 
of  ridiculing  him  into  silence.  An  over 
dressed  woman  is  not  so  pleasing  as  she 
might  be,  but  at  any  rate  she  is  better  than 
the  oil  of  vitriol  squirter,  whose  profession  it 
is  to  teach  young  ladies  to  avoid  vanity  by 
spoiling  their  showy  silks  and  satins. 

The  Lady  was  the  first  of  our  party  who 
was  invited  to  look  through  the  equatorial. 
Perhaps  this  world  had  proved  so  hard  to 
her  that  she  was  pained  to  think  that  other 
worlds  existed,  to  be  homes  of  suffering  and 
sorrow.  Perhaps  she  was  thinking  it  would 
be  a  happy  change  when  she  should  leave 
this  dark  planet  for  one  of  those  brighter 
spheres.  She  sighed,  at  any  rate,  but 
thanked  the  young  astronomer  for  the  beau 
tiful  sights  he  had  shown  her,  and  gave  way 
to  the  next  comer,  who  was  That  Boy,  now 
in  a  state  of  irrepressible  enthusiasm  to  see 
the  Man  in  the  Moon.  He  was  greatly  dis 
appointed  at  not  making  out  a  colossal  hu 
man  figure  moving  round  among  the  shining 


194  THE  POET  AT 

summits  and  shadowy  ravines  of  the  "  spotty 
globe." 

The  Landlady  came  next  and  wished  to 
see  the  moon  also,  in  preference  to  any  other 
object.  She  was  astonished  at  the  revela 
tions  of  the  powerful  telescope.  Was  there 
any  live  creatures  to  be  seen  on  the  moon  ? 
she  asked.  The  young  astronomer  shook  his 
head,  smiling  a  little  at  the  question.  Was 
there  any  meet'n'-houses  ?  There  was  no 
evidence,  he  said,  that  the  moon  was  inhab 
ited.  As  there  did  not  seem  to  be  either  air 
or  water  on  its  surface,  the  inhabitants 
would  have  a  rather  hard  time  of  it,  and  if 
they  went  to  meeting  the  sermons  would  be 
apt  to  be  rather  dry.  If  there  were  a  build 
ing  on  it  as  big  as  York  minster,  as  big  as 
the  Boston  Coliseum,  the  great  telescopes 
like  Lord  Rosse's  would  make  it  out.  But 
it  seemed  to  be  a  forlorn  place  ;  those  who 
had  studied  it  most  agreed  in  considering  it 
a  "  cold,  crude,  silent,  and  desolate  "  ruin  of 
nature,  without  the  possibility,  if  life  were 
on  it,  of  articulate  speech,  of  music,  even  of 
sound.  Sometimes  a  greenish  tint  was  seen 
upon  its  surface,  which  might  have  been 
taken  for  vegetation,  but  it  was  thought  not 
improbably  to  be  a  reflection  from  the  vast 
forests  of  South  America.  The  ancients  had 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  195 

a  fancy,  some  of  them,  that  the  face  of  the 
moon  was  a  mirror  in  which  the  seas  and 
shores  of  the  earth  were  imaged.  Now  we 
know  the  geography  of  the  side  toward  us 
about  as  well  as  that  of  Asia,  better  than 
that  of  Africa.  The  astronomer  showed  them 
one  of  the  common  small  photographs  of  the 
moon.  He  assured  them  that  he  had  re 
ceived  letters  inquiring  in  all  seriousness  if 
these  alleged  lunar  photographs  were  not 
really  taken  from  a  peeled  orange.  People 
had  got  angry  with  him  for  laughing  at  them 
for  asking  such  a  question.  Then  he  gave 
them  an  account  of  the  famous  moon-hoax 
which  came  out,  he  believed,  in  1835.  It 
was  full  of  the  most  barefaced  absurdities, 
yet  people  swallowed  it  all,  and  even  Arago 
is  said  to  have  treated  it  seriously  as  a  thing 
that  could  not  well  be  true,  for  Mr.  Herschel 
would  have  certainly  notified  him  of  these 
marvellous  discoveries.  The  writer  of  it  had 
not  troubled  himself  to  invent  probabilities, 
but  had  borrowed  his  scenery  from  the  Ara 
bian  Nights  and  his  lunar  inhabitants  from 
Peter  Wilkins. 

After  this  lecture  the  Capitalist  stepped 
forward  and  applied  his  eye  to  the  lens.  I 
suspect  it  to  have  been  shut  most  of  the 
time,  for  I  observe  a  good  many  elderly  peo- 


196  THE  POET  AT 

pie  adjust  the  organ  of  vision  to  any  optical 
instrument  in  that  way.  I  suppose  it  is 
from  the  instinct  of  protection  to  the  eye, 
the  same  instinct  as  that  which  makes  the 
raw  militia-man  close  it  when  he  pulls  the 
trigger  of  his  musket  the  first  time.  He  ex 
pressed  himself  highly  gratified,  however, 
with  what  he  saw,  and  retired  from  the  in 
strument  to  make  room  for  the  Young  Girl. 
She  threw  her  hair  back  and  took  her  po 
sition  at  the  instrument.  Saint  Simeon 
Stylites  the  Younger  explained  the  wonders 
of  the  moon  to  her,  —  Tycho  and  the  grooves 
radiating  from  it.  Kepler  and  Copernicus 
with  their  craters  and  ridges,  and  all  the 
most  brilliant  shows  of  this  wonderful  little 
world.  I  thought  he  was  more  diffuse  and 

O 

more  enthusiastic  in  his  descriptions  than  he 
had  been  with  the  older  members  of  the 
party.  I  don't  doubt  the  old  gentleman 
who  lived  so  long  on  the  top  of  his  pillar 
would  have  kept  a  pretty  sinner  (if  he  could 
have  had  an  elevator  to  hoist  her  up  to  him) 
longer  than  he  would  have  kept  her  grand 
mother.  These  young  people  are  so  igno 
rant,  you  know.  As  for  our  Scheherezade, 
her  delight  was  unbounded,  and  her  curios 
ity  insatiable.  If  there  were  any  living 
creatures  there,  what  odd  things  they  must 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  197 

be.  They  could  n't  have  any  lungs,  nor  any 
hearts.  What  a  pity  !  Did  they  ever  die  ? 
How  could  they  expire  if  they  did  n't 
breathe?  Burn  up?  No  air  to  burn  in. 
Tumble  into  some  of  those  horrid  pits,  per 
haps,  and  break  all  to  bits.  She  wondered 
how  the  young  people  there  liked  it,  or 
whether  there  were  any  young  people  there  ; 
perhaps  nobody  was  young  and  nobody  was 
old,  but  they  were  like  mummies  all  of  them 
—  what  an  idea  —  two  mummies  making 
love  to  each  other !  So  she  went  on  in  a 
rattling,  giddy  kind  of  way,  for  she  was  ex 
cited  by  the  strange  scene  in  which  she 
found  herself,  and  quite  astonished  the 
young  astronomer  with  her  vivacity.  All  at 
once  she  turned  to  him. 

Will  you  show  me  the  double  star  you 
said  I  should  see  ? 

With  the  greatest  pleasure,  —  he  said, 
and  proceeded  to  wheel  the  ponderous  dome, 
and  then  to  adjust  the  instrument,  I  think 
to  the  one  in  Andromeda,  or  that  in  Cygnus, 
but  I  should  not  know  one  of  them  from  the 
other. 

How  beautiful !  —  she  said  as  she  looked 
at  the  wonderful  object.  —  One  is  orange 
red  and  one  is  emerald  green. 

The  young  man  made  an  explanation  in 


198  THE  POET  AT 

which  he  said  something  about  complemen 
tary  colors. 

Goodness  !  —  exclaimed  the  Landlady.  — 
What !  complimentary  to  our  party  ? 

Her  wits  must  have  been  a  good  deal  con 
fused  by  the  strange  sights  of  the  evening. 
She  had  seen  tickets  marked  complimentary  ^ 
she  remembered,  but  she  could  not  for  the 
life  of  her  understand  why  our  party  should 
be  particularly  favored  at  a  celestial  exhibi 
tion  like  this.  On  the  whole,  she  questioned 
inwardly  whether  it  might  not  be  some  subtle 
pleasantry,  and  smiled,  experimentally,  with 
a  note  of  interrogation  in  the  smile,  but, 
finding  no  encouragement,  allowed  her  fea 
tures  to  subside  gradually  as  if  nothing  had 
happened.  I  saw  all  this  as  plainly  as  if  it 
had  all  been  printed  in  great-primer  type, 
instead  of  working  itself  out  in  her  features. 
I  like  to  see  other  people  muddled  now  and 
then,  because  my  own  occasional  dulness  is 
relieved  by  a  good  solid  background  of  stu 
pidity  in  my  neighbors. 

—  And  the  two  revolve  round  each  other  ? 
—  said  the  Young  Girl. 

—  Yes,  —  he    answered,  —  two    suns,    a 
greater  and  a  less,  each  shining,  but  with  a 
different  light,  for  the  other. 

—  How  charming !     It  must  be  so  much 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  199 

pleasanter  than  to  be  alone  in  such  a  great 
empty  space !  I  should  think  one  would 
hardly  care  to  shine  if  its  light  wasted  itself 
in  the  monstrous  solitude  of  the  sky.  Does 
not  a  single  star  seem  very  lonely  to  you  up 
there  ? 

—  Not  more  lonely  than  I  am  myself,  — 
answered  the  Young  Astronomer. 

—  I  don't  know  what  there  was  in  those 
few  words,  but  I  noticed  that  for  a  minute 
or  two  after  they  were  uttered  I  heard  the 
ticking  of   the  clock-work   that  moved    the 
telescope  as  clearly  as  if  we  had   all  been 
holding  our    breath,  and    listening  for    the 
music  of  the  spheres. 

The  Young  Girl  kept  her  eye  closely  ap 
plied  to  the  eye-piece  of  the  telescope  a  very 
long  time,  it  seemed  to  me.  Those  double 
stars  interested  her  a  good  deal,  no  doubt. 
When  she  looked  off  from  the  glass  I 
thought  both  her  eyes  appeared  very  much 
as  if  they  had  been  a  little  strained,  for  they 
were  suffused  and  glistening.  It  may  be 
that  she  pitied  the  lonely  young  man. 

I  know  nothing  in  the  world  tenderer 
than  the  pity  that  a  kind-hearted  young  girl 
has  for  a  young  man  who  feels  lonely.  It  is 
true  that  these  dear  creatures  are  all  com 
passion  for  every  form  of  human  woe,  and 


200  THE  POET  AT 

anxious  to  alleviate  all  human  misfortunes. 
They  will  go  to  Sunday-schools  through 
storms  their  brothers  are  afraid  of,  to  teach 
the  most  unpleasant  and  intractable  classes 
of  little  children  the  age  of  Methuselah  and 
the  dimensions  of  Og  the  King  of  Bashan's 
bedstead.  They  will  stand  behind  a  table 
at  a  fair  all  day  until  they  are  ready  to  drop, 
dressed  in  their  prettiest  clothes  and  their 
sweetest  smiles,  and  lay  hands  upon  you, 
like  so  many  Lady  Potiphars,  —  perfectly 
correct  ones,  of  course,  —  to  make  you  buy 
what  you  do  not  want,  at  prices  which  you 
cannot  afford  ;  all  this  as  cheerfully  as  if  it 
were  not  martyrdom  to  them  as  well  as  to 
you.  Such  is  their  love  for  all  good  objects, 
such  their  eagerness  to  sympathize  with  all 
their  suffering  fellow-creatures  !  But  there 
is  nothing  they  pity  as  they  pity  a  lonely 
young  man. 

I  am  sure,  I  sympathize  with  her  in  this 
instance.  To  see  a  pale  student  burning 
away,  like  his  own  midnight  lamp,  with 
only  dead  men's  hands  to  hold,  stretched 
out  to  him  from  the  sepulchres  of  books, 
and  dead  men's  souls  imploring  him  from 
their  tablets  to  warm  them  over  again  just 
for  a  little  while  in  a  human  consciousness, 
when  all  this  time  there  are  soft,  warm,  liv- 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  201 

ing  hands  that  would  ask  nothing  better 
than  to  bring  the  blood  back  into  those  cold 
thin  fingers,  and  gently  caressing  natures 
that  would  wind  all  their  tendrils  about  the 
unawakened  heart  which  knows  so  little  of 
itself,  is  .pitiable  enough  and  would  be  sad 
der  still  if  we  did  not  have  the  feeling  that 
sooner  or  later  the  pale  student  will  be 
pretty  sure  to  feel  the  breath  of  a  young 
girl  against  his  cheek  as  she  looks  over  his 
shoulder ;  and  that  he  will  come  all  at  once 
to  an  illuminated  page  in  his  book  that 
never  writer  traced  in  characters,  and  never 
printer  set  up  in  type,  and  never  binder  en 
closed  within  his  covers  !  But  our  young 
man  seems  farther  away  from  life  than  any 
student  whose  head  is  bent  downward?  over 
his  books.  His  eyes  are  turned  away  from 
all  human  things.  How  cold  the  moonlight 
is  that  falls  upon  his  forehead,  and  how 
white  he  looks  in  it !  Will  not  the  rays 
strike  through  to  his  brain  at  last,  and  send 
him  to  a  narrower  cell  than  this  egg-shell 
dome  which  is  his  workshop  and  his  prison  ? 
I  cannot  say  that  the  Young  Astronomer 
seemed  particularly  impressed  with  a  sense 
of  his  miserable  condition.  He  said  he  was 
lonely,  it  is  true,  but  he  said  it  in  a  manly 
tone,  and  not  as  if  he  were  repining  at  the 


202  THE  POET  AT 

inevitable  condition  of  his  devoting  himself 
to  that  particular  branch  of  science.  Of 
course,  he  is  lonely,  the  most  lonely  being1 
that  lives  in  the  midst  of  our  breathing 
world.  If  he  would  only  stay  a  little  longer 
with  us  when  we  get  talking  ;  but  he  is  busy 
almost  always  either  in  observation  or  with 
his  calculations  and  studies,  and  when  the 
nights  are  fair  loses  so  much  sleep  that  he 
must  make  it  up  by  day.  He  wants  contact 
with  human  beings.  I  wish  he  would 
change  his  seat  and  come  round  and  sit  by 
our  Scheherezade ! 

The  rest  of  the  visit  went  off  well  enough, 
except  that  the  "  Man  of  Letters,"  so  called, 
rather  snubbed  some  of  the  heavenly  bodies 
as  not  quite  up  to  his  standard  of  brilliancy. 
I  thought  myself  that  the  double-star  episode 
was  the  best  part  of  it. 

I  have  an  unexpected  revelation  to  make 
to  the  reader.  Not  long  after  our  visit  to 
the  Observatory,  the  Young  Astronomer  put 
a  package  into  my  hands,  a  manuscript,  evi 
dently,  which  he  said  he  would  like  to  have 
me  glance  over.  I  found  something  in  it 
which  interested  me,  and  told  him  the  next 
day  that  I  should  like  to  read  it  with  some 
care.  He  seemed  rather  pleased  at  this, 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  203 

and  said  that  he  wished  I  would  criticise  it 
as  roughly  as  I  liked,  and  if  I  saw  anything 
in  it  which  might  be  dressed  to  better  ad 
vantage  to  treat  it  freely,  just  as  if  it  were 
my  own  production.  It  had  often  happened 
to  him,  he  went  on  to  say,  to  be  interrupted 
in  his  observations  by  clouds  covering  the 
objects  he  was  examining  for  a  longer  or 
shorter  time.  In  these  idle  moments  he  had 
put  down  many  thoughts,  unskillfully  he 
feared,  but  just  as  they  came  into  his  mind. 
His  blank  verse  he  suspected  was  often 
faulty.  His  thoughts  he  knew  must  be 
crude,  many  of  them.  It  would  please  him 
to  have  me  amuse  myself  by  putting  them 
into  shape.  He  was  kind  enough  to  say 
that  I  was  an  artist  in  words,  but  he  held 
himself  as  an  unskilled  apprentice. 

I  confess  I  was  appalled  when  I  cast  my 
eye  upon  the  title  of  the  manuscript,  "  Cirri 
and  Nebulas." 

—  Oh !  oh !  —  I  said,  —  that  will   never 
do.     People  don't  know  what  Cirri  are,  at 
least  not  one  out  of  -fifty  readers.     "  Wind- 
Clouds  and  Star-Drifts  "  will  do  better  than 
that. 

—  Anything  you  like,  —  he  answered,  — 
what    difference    does     it   make     how   you 
christen  a  foundling  ?     These    are  not  my 


204  THE  POET  AT 

legitimate  scientific  offspring,  and  you  may 
consider  them  left  on  your  doorstep. 

- 1  will  not  attempt  to  say  just  how 
much  of  the  diction  of  these  lines  belongs 
to  him,  and  how  much  to  me.  He  said  he 
would  never  claim  them,  after  I  read  them 
to  him  in  my  version.  I,  on  my  part,  do 
not  wish  to  be  held  responsible  for  some  of 
his  more  daring  thoughts,  if  I  should  see  fit 
to  reproduce  them  hereafter.  At  this  time 
I  shall  give  only  the  first  part  of  the  series 
of  poetical  outbreaks  for  which  the  young 
devotee  of  science  must  claim  his  share  of 
the  responsibility.  I  may  put  some  more 
passages  into  shape  by  and  by. 

WIND-CLOUDS  AND  STAR-DRIFTS. 

Another  clouded  night ;  the  stars  are  hid, 

The  orb  that  waits  my  search  is  hid  with  them. 

Patience  !     Why    grudge   an   hour,  a  month,  a 

year, 

To  plant  my  ladder  and  to  gain  the  round 
That  leads  my  footsteps  to  the  heaven  of  fame, 
Where  waits  the  wreath  "my  sleepless  midnights 

won  ? 

Not  the  stained  laurel  such  as  heroes  wear 
That    withers    when  some   stronger    conqueror's 

heel 
Treads   down  their   shrivelling   trophies  in   the 

dust; 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  205 

But  the  fair  garland  whose  undying  green 

Not  time  can  change,  nor  wrath  of  gods  or  men  ! 

With  quickened    heart-beats  I  shall  hear  the 

tongues 

That  speak  my  praise  ;  but  better  far  the  sense 
That  in  the  unshaped  ages,  buried  deep 
In  the  dark  mines  of  unaccomplished  time 
Yet  to  be  stamped  with  morning's  royal  die 
And  coined  in  golden  days,  —  in  those  dim  years 
I  shall  be  reckoned  with  the  undying  dead, 
My  name  emblazoned  on  the  fiery  arch, 
Unfading  till  the  stars  themselves  shall  fade. 
Then,  as  they  call  the  roll  of  shining  worlds, 
Sages  of  race  unborn  in  accents  new 
Shall  count  me  with  the  Olympian  ones  of  old, 
Whose  glories  kindle  through  the  midnight  sky  : 
Here  glows  the  God  of  Battles  ;  this  recalls 
The  Lord  of  Ocean,  and  yon  far-off  sphere 
The  Sire  of  Him  who  gave  his  ancient  name 
To  the  dim  planet  with  the  wondrous  rings  ; 
Here  flames  the  Queen  of  Beauty's  silver  lamp, 
And  there  the  moon-girt  orb  of  mighty  Jove ; 
But  this,  unseen  through  all  earth's  aeons  past, 
A  youth  who  watched  beneath  the  western  star 
Sought  in  the   darkness,  found,  and   showed   to 

men  ; 

Linked  with  his  name  thenceforth  and  evermore  ! 
So  shall  that  name  be  syllabled  anew 
In  all  the  tongues  of  all  the  tribes  of  men  : 
I  that  have  been  through  immemorial  years 


206  THE  POET  AT 

Dust  'n  the  dust  of  my  forgotten  time 

Shall  live  in  accents  shaped  of  blood-warm  breath, 

Yea,  rise  in  mortal  semblance,  newly  born 

In  shining  stone,  in  undecaying  bronze, 

And  stand  on  high,  and  look  serenely  down 

On  the  new  race  that  calls  the  earth  its  own. 

Is  this  a  cloud,  that,  blown  athwart  my  soul, 
Wears  a  false  seeming  of  the  pearly  stain 
Where  worlds  beyond  the  world  their  mingling 

rays 

Blend  in  soft  white,  —  a  cloud  that,  born  of  earth, 
Would  cheat  the  soul  that  looks  for  light  from 

heaven  ? 

Must  every  coral-insect  leave  his  sign 
On  each  poor  grain  he  lent  to  build  the  reef, 
As  Babel's  builders  stamped  their  sunburnt  clay, 
Or  deem  his  patient  service  all  in  vain  ? 
What  if  another  sit  beneath  the  shade 
Of  the  broad  elm  I  planted  by  the  way,  — 
What  if  another  heed  the  beacon  light 
I  set  upon  the  rock  that  wrecked  my  keel,  — 
Have  I  not  done  my  task  and  served  my  kind  f 
Nay,  rather  act  thy  part,  unnamed,  unknown, 
And    let  Fame    blow  her   trumpet  through   the 

world 

With  noisy  wind  to  swell  a  fool's  renown, 
Joined  with  some  truth  he  stumbled  blindly  o'er, 
Or  coupled  with  some  single  shining  deed 
That  in  the  great  account  of  all  his  days 
Will  stand  alone  upon  the  bankrupt  sheet 


TUE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  207 

His  pitying  angel  shows  the  clerk  of  Heaven. 
The  noblest  service  comes  from  nameless  hands, 
And  the  best  servant  does  his  work  unseen. 
Who  found   the  seeds  of   fire  and   made   them 

shoot, 

Fed  by  his  breath,  in  buds  and  flowers  of  flame  ? 
Who   forged    in   roaring  flames  the  ponderous 

stone, 

And  shaped  the  moulded  metal  to  his  need  ? 
Who  gave  the  dragging  car  its  rolling  wheel, 
And  tamed  the  steed  that  whirls  its  circling 

round  ? 
All   these  have  left   their  work   and   not   their 

names,  — 

Why  should  I  murmur  at  a  fate  like  theirs  ? 
This  is  the  heavenly  light ;  the  pearly  stain 
Was  but  a  wind-cloud  drifting  o'er  the  stars  ! 


VI. 

I  find  I  have  so  many  things  in  common 
with  the  old  Master  of  Arts,  that  I  do  not 
always  know  whether  a  thought  was  origi 
nally  his  or  mine.  That  is  what  always 
happens  where  two  persons  of  a  similar  cast 
of  mind  talk  much  together.  And  both  of 
them  often  gain  by  the  interchange.  Many 
ideas  grow  better  when  transplanted  into 
another  mind  than  in  the  one  where  they 
sprang  up.  That  which  was  a  weed  in  one 


208  THE  POET  AT 

intelligence  becomes  a  flower  in  the  other. 
A  flower,  on  the  other  hand,  may  dwindle 
down  to  a  mere  weed  by  the  same  change. 
Healthy  growths  may  become  poisonous  by 
falling  upon  the  wrong  mental  soil,  and  what 
saemed  a  night-shade  in  one  mind  unfold  as 
a  morning-glory  in  the  other. 

—  I   thank   God,  —  the    Master   said,  — 
that  a   great  many  people    believe  a  great 
deal   more    than    I    do.     I    think,  when    it 
comes  to  serious  matters,  I  like  those  who 
believe  more  than  I  do  better  than  those  who 
believe  less. 

—  Why,  —  said  I,  —  you  have  got  hold  of 
one  of  my  own  working  axioms.     I  should 
like  to  hear  you  develop  it. 

The  Member  of  the  Haouse  said  he  should 
be  glad  to  listen  to  the  debate.  The  gentle 
man  had  the  floor.  The  Scarabee  rose  from 
his  chair  and  departed  ;  —  I  thought  his 
joints  creaked  as  he  straightened  himself. 

The  Young  Girl  made  a  slight  movement ; 
it  was  a  purely  accidental  coincidence, ' no 
doubt,  but  I  saw  That  Boy  put  his  hand  in 
his  pocket  and  pull  out  his  popgun,  and  be 
gin  loading  it.  It  cannot  be  that  our  Sche- 
herezade,  who  looks  so  quiet  and  proper  at 
the  table,  can  make  use  of  That  Boy  and  his 
catapult  to  control  the  course  of  conversa- 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  209 

tion  and  change  it  to  suit  herself  !  She  cer 
tainly  looks  innocent  enough ;  but  what  does 
a  blush  prove,  and  what  does  its  absence 
prove,  on  one  of  these  innocent  faces? 
There  is  nothing  in  all  this  world  that  can 
lie  and  cheat  like  the  face  and  the  tongue  of 
a  young  girl.  Just  give  her  a  little  touch 
of  hysteria,  —  I  don't  mean  enough  of  it  to 
make  her  friends  call  the  doctor  in,  but  a 
slight  hint  of  it  in  the  nervous  system,  — 
and  "  Machiavel  the  waiting-maid  "  might 
take  lessons  of  her.  But  I  cannot  think  our 
Scheherezade  is  one  of  that  kind,  and  I  am 
ashamed  of  myself  for  noting  such  a  trifling 
coincidence  as  that  which  excited  my  sus 
picion. 

—  I  say,  —  the  Master  continued,  —  that 
I  had  rather  be  in  the  company  of  those  who 
believe  more  than  I  do,  in  spiritual  matters 
at  least,  than  of  those  who  doubt  what  I  ac 
cept  as  a  part  of  my  belief. 

-  To  tell  the  truth,  —  said  I,  —  I  find 
that  difficulty  sometimes  in  talking  with 
you.  You  have  not  quite  so  many  hesita 
tions  as  I  have  in  following  out  your  logical 
conclusions.  I  suppose  you  would  bring 
some  things  out  into  daylight  questioning 
that  I  had  rather  leave  in  that  twilight  of 
half -belief  peopled  with  shadows  —  if  they 


210  THE  POET  AT 

are  only  shadows  —  more  sacred  to  me  than 
many  realities. 

There  is  nothing  I  do  not  question,  —  said 
the  Master  ;  —  I  not  only  begin  with  the  pre 
cept  of  Descartes,  but  I  hold  all  my  opinions 
involving  any  chain  of  reasoning  always  open 
to  revision. 

-I  confess  that  I  smiled  internally  to 
hear  him  say  that.  The  old  Master  thinks 
he  is  open  to  conviction  on  all  subjects  ;  but 
if  you  meddle  with  some  of  his  notions  and 
don't  get  tossed  on  his  horns  as  if  a  bull  had 
hold  of  you,  I  should  call  you  lucky. 

—  You  don't  mean  you  doubt  everything  ? 
—  I  said. 

—  What  do  you  think  I  question  every 
thing  for,  —  the  Master  replied,  —  if  I  never 
get  any  answers  ?    You  've  seen  a  blind  man 
with  a  stick,  feeling  his  way  along  ?     Well, 
I  am  a  blind  man  with  a  stick,  and  I  find 
the  world  pretty  full  of  men  just  as  blind 
as  I  am,  but  without  any  stick.     I  try  the 
ground  to  find  out  whether  it  is  firm  or  not 
before  I  rest  my  weight  on  it ;  but  after  -it 
has  borne  my  weight,  that  question  at  least 
is  answered.     It  very  certainly  was  strong 
enough  once ;  the  presumption  is  that  it  is 
strong  enough  now.     Still  the  soil  may  have 
been    undermined,    or    I    may   have    grown 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  211 

heavier.  Make  as  much  of  that  as  you  will. 
I  say  I  question  everything ;  but  if  I  find 
Bunker  Hill  Monument  standing  as  straight 
as  when  I  leaned  against  it  a  year  or  ten 
years  ago,  I  am  not  very  much  afraid  that 
Bunker  Hill  will  cave  in  if  I  trust  myself 
again  on  the  soil  of  it. 

I  glanced  off,  as  one  often  does  in  talk. 

The  Monument  is  an  awful  place  to  visit, 
—  I  said.  —  The  waves  of  time  are  like  the 
waves  of  the  ocean  ;  the  only  thing  they  beat 
against  without  destroying  it  is  a  rock ;  and 
they  destroy  that  at  last.  But  it  takes  a 
good  while.  There  is  a  stone  now  standing 
in  very  good  order  that  was  as  old  as  a 
monument  of  Louis  XIV.  and  Queen  Anne's 
day  is  now  when  Joseph  went  down  into 
Egypt.  Think  of  the  shaft  on  Bunker  Hill 
standing  in  the  sunshine  on  the  morning  of 
January  1st  in  the  year  5872  ! 

It  won't  be  standing,  —  the  Master  said. 
-  We  are  poor  bunglers  compared  to  those 
old  Egyptians.  There  are  no  joints  in  one 
of  their  obelisks.  They  are  our  masters  in 
more  ways  than  we  know  of,  and  in  more 
ways  than  some  of  us  are  willing  to  know. 
That  old  Lawgiver  was  n't  learned  in  all  the 
wisdom  of  the  Egyptians  for  nothing.  It 
scared  people  well  a  couple  of  hundred  years 


212  THE  POET  AT 

ago  when  Sir  John  Marsham  and  Dr.  John 
Spencer  ventured  to  tell  their  stories  about 
the  sacred  ceremonies  of  the  Egyptian  priest 
hood.  People  are  beginning  to  find  out  now 
that  you  can't  study  any  religion  by  itself 
to  any  good  purpose.  You  must  have  com 
parative  theology  as  you  have  comparative 
anatomy.  What  would  you  make  of  a  cat's 
foolish  little  good-for-nothing  collar-bone,  if 
you  did  not  know  how  the  same  bone  means 
a  good  deal  in  other  creatures,  —  in  your 
self,  for  instance,  as  you  '11  find  out  if  you 
break  it?  You  can't  know  too  much  of 
your  race  and  its  beliefs,  if  you  want  to  know 
anything  about  your  Maker.  I  never  found 
but  one  sect  large  enough  to  hold  the  whole 
of  me. 

—  And  may  I  ask  what  that   was  ?  —  I 
said. 

—  The    Human    sect,  —  the    Master   an 
swered.  —  That  has  about  room  enough  for 
me,  —  at  present,  I  mean  to  say. 

—  Including  cannibals  and  all? —  said  I. 

—  O,  as  to  that,  the  eating  of  one's  kind 
is  a  matter  of  taste,  but  the  roasting  of  them 
has  been  rather  more  a  specialty  of  our  own 
particular  belief  than  of  any  other  I  am  ac 
quainted  with.      If  you  broil  a  saint,  I  don't 
see  why,  if  you  have  a  mind,  you   should  n't 
serve  him  up  at  your  — 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  213 

Pop !  went  the  little  piece  of  artillery. 
Don't  tell  me  it  was  accident.  I  know  better. 
You  can't  suppose  for  one  minute  that  a  boy 
like  that  one  would  time  his  interruptions  so 
cleverly.  Now  it  so  happened  that  at  that 
particular  moment  Dr.  B.  Franklin  was  not 
at  the  table.  You  may  draw  your  own  con 
clusions.  I  say  nothing,  but  I  think  a  good 
deal. 

- 1  came  back  to  the  Bunker  Hill  Mon 
ument.  —  I  often  think  —  I  said  —  of  the 
dynasty  which  is  to  reign  in  its  shadow  for 
some  thousands  of  years,  it  may  be. 

The  "  Man  of  Letters,"  so  called,  asked 
me,  in  a  tone  I  did  not  exactly  like,  whether 
I  expected  to  live  long  enough  to  see  a  mon 
archy  take  the  place  of  a  republic  in  this 
country. 

—  No,  —  said  I,  —  I  was  thinking  of 
something  very  different.  I  was  indulging 
a  fancy  of  mine  about  the  Man  who  is  to  sit 
at  the  foot  of  the  monument  for  one,  or  it 
may  be  two  or  three  thousand  years.  As 
long  as  the  monument  stands  and  there  is  a 
city  near  it,  there  will  always  be  a  man  to 
take  the  names  of  visitors  and  extract  some 
small  tribute  from  their  pockets,  I  suppose. 
I  sometimes  get  thinking  of  the  long,  un 
broken  succession  of  these  men,  until  they 


214  THE  POET  AT 

come  to  look  like  one  Man  ;  continuous  in 
being,  unchanging  as  the  stone  he  watches, 
looking  upon  the  successive  generations  of 
human  beings  as  they  come  and  go,  and  out 
living  all  the  dynasties  of  the  world  in  all 
probability.  It  has  come  to  such  a  pass  that 
I  never  speak  to  the  Man  of  the  Monument 
without  wanting  to  take  my  hat  off  and  feel 
ing  as  if  I  were  looking  down  a  vista  of 
twenty  or  thirty  centuries. 

The  "  Man  of -Letters,"  so  called,  said,  in 
a  rather  contemptuous  way,  I  thought,  that 
he  had  n't  got  so  far  as  that.  He  was  n't 
quite  up  to  moral  reflections  on  toll-men  and 
ticket-takers.  Sentiment  was  n't  his  tap. 

He  looked  round  triumphantly  for  a  re 
sponse  :  but  the  Capitalist  was  a  little  hard 
of  hearing  just  then  ;  the  Register  of  Deeds 
was  browsing  on  his  food  in  the  calm  bovine 
abstraction  of  a  quadruped,  and  paid  no  at 
tention  ;  the  Salesman  had  bolted  his  break 
fast,  and  whisked  himself  away  with  that 
peculiar  alacrity  which  belongs  to  the  retail 
dealer's  assistant;  and  the  Member  of  the 
Haouse,  who  had  sometimes  seemed  to  be 
impressed  with  his  "  tahlented  malm's  "  air 
of  superiority  to  the  rest  of  us,  looked  as  if 
he  thought  the  speaker  was  not  exactly  par 
liamentary.  So  he  failed  to  make  his  point, 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  215 

and  reddened  a  little,  and  was  not  in  the 
best  humor,  I  thought,  when  he  left  the 
table.  I  hope  he  will  not  let  off  any  of  his 
irritation  on  our  poor  little  Scheherezade  ; 
but  the  truth  is,  the  first  person  a  man  of 
this  sort  (if  he  is  what  I  think  him)  meets, 
when  he  is  out  of  humor,  has  to  be  made  a 
victim  of,  and  I  only  hope  our  Young  Girl 
will  not  have  to  play  Jephthalf  s  daughter. 

And  that  leads  me  to  say,  I  cannot  help 
thinking  that  the  kind  of  criticism  to  which 
this  Young  Girl  has  been  subjected  from 
some  person  or  other,  who  is  willing  to  be 
smart  at  her  expense,  is  hurtful  and  not 
wholesome.  The  question  is  a  delicate  one. 
So  many  foolish  persons  are  rushing  into 
print,  that  it  requires  a  kind  of  literary  po 
lice  to  hold  them  back  and  keep  them  in 
order.  Where  there  are  mice  there  must  be 
cats,  and  where  there  are  rats  we  may  think 
it  worth  our  while  to  keep  a  terrier,  who  will 
give  them  a  shake  and  let  them  drop,  with 
all  the  mischief  taken  out  of  them.  But  the 
process  is  a  rude  and  cruel  one  at  best,  and 
it  too  often  breeds  a  love  of  destructiveness 
for  its  own  sake  in  those  who  get  their  living 
by  it.  A  poor  poem  or  essay  does  not  do 
much  harm  after  all ;  nobody  reads  it  who 
is  like  to  be  seriously  hurt  by  it.  But  a 


216  THE  POET  AT 

sharp  criticism  with  a  drop  of  witty  venom 
in  it  stings  a  young  author  almost  to  death, 
and  makes  an  old  one  uncomfortable  to  no 
purpose.  If  it  were  my  business  to  sit  in 
judgment  on  my  neighbors,  I  would  try  to  be 
courteous,  at  least,  to  those  who  had  done 
any  good  service,  but,  above  all,  I  would 
handle  tenderly  those  young  authors  who 
are  coming  before  the  public  in  the  flutter 
of  their  first  or  early  appearance,  and  are 
in  the  trembling  delirium  of  stage-fright  al 
ready.  Before  you  write  that  brilliant  no 
tice  of  some  alliterative  Angelina's  book  of 
verses,  I  wish  you  would  try  this  experiment. 
Take  half  a  sheet  of  paper  and  copy  upon 
it  any  of  Angelina's  stanzas,  —  the  ones  you 
were  going  to  make  fun  of,  if  you  will.  Now 
go  to  your  window,  if  it  is  a  still  day,  open 
it,  and  let  the  half-sheet  of  paper  drop  on 
the  outside.  How  gently  it  falls  through  the 
soft  air,  always  tending  downwards,  but  slid 
ing  softly,  from  side  to  side,  wavering,  hesi 
tating,  balancing,  until  it  settles  as  noise 
lessly  as  a  snow-flake  upon  the  all-receiving 
bosom  of  the  earth  !  Just  such  would  have 
been  the  fate  of  poor  Angelina's  fluttering 
effort,  if  you  had  left  it  to  itself.  It  would 
have  slanted  downward  into  oblivion  so 
sweetly  and  softly  that  she  would  have  never 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  217 

known  when  it  reached  that  harmless  con 
summation. 

Our  epizoic  literature  is  becoming  so  ex 
tensive  that  nobody  is  safe  from  its  ad  infin- 
itum  progeny.  A  man  writes  a  book  of  criti 
cisms.  A  Quarterly  Review  criticises  the 
critic.  A  Monthly  Magazine  takes  up  the 
critic's  critic.  A  Weekly  Journal  criticises 
the  critic  of  the  critic's  critic,  and  a  daily 
paper  favors  us  with  some  critical  remarks 
on  the  performance  of  the  writer  in  the 
Weekly,  who  has  criticised  the  critical  notice 
in  the  Monthly  of  the  critical  essay  in  the 
Quarterly  on  the  critical  work  we  started 
with.  And  thus  we  see  that  as  each  flea  "  has 
smaller  fleas  that  on  him  prey,"  even  the 
critic  himself  cannot  escape  the  common  lot 
of  being  bitten.  Whether  all  this  is  a  bless 
ing  or  a  curse,  like  that  one  which  ma,de 
Pharaoh  and  all  his  household  run  to  their 
toilet-tables,  is  a  question  about  which  opin 
ions  might  differ.  The  physiologists  of  the 
time  of  Moses  -^—  if  there  were  vivisectors 
other  than  priests  in  those  clays  —  would 
probably  have  considered  that  other  plague, 
of  the  frogs,  as  a  fortunate  opportunity  for 
science,  as  this  poor  little  beast  has  been  the 
souffrc-douleur  of  experimenters  and  school 
boys  from  time  immemorial. 


218  THE  POET  AT 

But  there  is  a  form  of  criticism  to  which 
none  will  object.  It  is  impossible  to  come 
before  a  public  so  alive  with  sensibilities  as 
this  we  live  in,  with  the  smallest  evidence 
of  a  sympathetic  disposition,  without  making- 
friends  in  a  very  unexpected  way.  Every 
where  there  are  minds  tossing  on  the  unquiet 
waves  of  doubt.  If  you  confess  to  the  same 
perplexities  and  uncertainties  that  torture 
them,  they  are  grateful  for  your  companion 
ship.  If  you  have  groped  your  way  out  of 
the  wilderness  in  which  you  were  once  wan 
dering  with  them,  they  will  follow  your  foot 
steps,  it  may  be,  and  bless  you  as  their  de 
liverer.  So,  all  at  once,  a  writer  finds  he  has 
a  parish  of  devout  listeners,  scattered,  it  is 
true,  beyond  the  reach  of  any  summons  but 
that  of  a  trumpet  like  the  archangel's,  to 
whom  his  slight  discourse  may  be  of  more 
value  than  the  exhortations  they  hear  from 
the  pulpit,  if  these  last  do  not  happen  to  suit 
their  special  needs.  Young  men  with  more 
ambition  and  intelligence  than  force  of  char 
acter,  who  have  missed  their  first  steps  in 
life  and  are  stumbling  irresolute  amidst 
vague  aims  and  changing  purposes,  hold  out 
their  hands,  imploring  to  be  led  into,  or  at 
least  pointed  towards,  some  path  where  they 
can  find  a  firm  foothftld.  Young  women 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  219 

horn  into  a  chilling  atmosphere  of  circum 
stance  which  keeps  all  the  buds  of  their  na 
ture  unopened  and  always  striving  to  get  to 
a  ray  of  sunshine,  if  one  finds  its  way  to 
their  neighborhood,  tell  their  stories,  some 
times  simply  and  touchingly,  sometimes  in  a 
more  or  less  affected  and  rhetorical  way,  but 
still  stories  of  defeated  and  disappointed  in 
stincts  which  ought  to  make  any  moderately 
impressible  person  feel  very  tenderly  toward 
them. 

In  speaking  privately  to  these  young  per 
sons,  many  of  whom  have  literary  aspira 
tions,  one  should  be  very  considerate  of 
their  human  feelings.  But  addressing  them 
collectively  a  few  plain  truths  will  not  give 
any  one  of  them  much  pain.  Indeed,  almost 
every  individual  among  them  will  feel  sure 
that  he  or  she  is  an  exception  to  those  gener 
alities  which  apply  so  well  to  the  rest. 

If  I  were  a  literary  Pope  sending  out  an 
Encyclical,  I  would  tell  these  inexperienced 
persons  that  nothing  is  so  frequent  as  to 
mistake  an  ordinary  human  gift  for  a  spe 
cial  and  extraordinary  endowment.  The 
mechanism  of  breathing  and  that  of  swal 
lowing  are  very  wonderful,  and  if  one  had 
seen  and  studied  them  in  his  own  person 
only,  he  might  well  think  himself  a  prodigy. 


220  THE  POET  AT 

Everybody  knows  these  and  other  bodily 
faculties  are  common  gifts ;  but  nobody  ex 
cept  editors  and  school-teachers  and  here 
and  there  a  literary  man  knows  how  com 
mon  is  the  capacity  of  rhyming  and  prat 
tling  in  readable  prose,  especially  among 
young  women  of  a  certain  degree  of  educa 
tion.  In  my  character  of  Pontiff,  I  should 
tell  these  young  persons  that  most  of  them 
labored  under  a  delusion.  It  is  very  hard 
to  believe  it ;  one  feels  so  full  of  intelligence 
and  so  decidedly  superior  to  one's  dull  rela 
tions  and  schoolmates ;  one  writes  so  easily 
and  the  lines  sound  so  prettily  to  one's  self ; 
there  are  such  felicities  of  expression,  just 
like  those  we  hear  quoted  from  the  great 
poets ;  and  besides  one  has  been  told  by  so 
many  friends  that  all  one  had  to  do  was  to 
print  and  be  famous  !  Delusion,  my  poor 
dear,  delusion  at  least  nineteen  times  out  of 
twenty,  yes,  ninety-nine  times  in  a  hundred. 

But  as  private  father  confessor,  I  always 
allow  as  much  as  I  can  for  the  one  chance 
in  the  hundred.  I  try  not  to  take  away  all 
hope,  unless  the  case  is  clearly  desperate, 
and  then  to  direct  the  activities  into  some 
other  channel. 

Using  kind  language,  I  can  talk  pretty 
freely.  I  have  counselled  more  than  one 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  221 

aspirant  after  literary  fame  to  go  back  to 
his  tailor's  board  or  his  lapstone.  I  have 
advised  the  dilettanti,  whose  foolish  friends 
praised  their  verses  or  their  stories,  to  give 
up  all  their  deceptive  dreams  of  making  a 
name  by  their  genius,  and  go  to  work  in  the 
study  of  a  profession  which  asked  only  for 
the  diligent  use  of  average,  ordinary  talents. 
It  is  a  very  grave  responsibility  which  these 
unknown  correspondents  throw  upon  their 
chosen  counsellors.  One  whom  you  have 
never  seen,  who  lives  in  a  community  of 
which  you  know  nothing,  sends  you  speci 
mens  more  or  less  painfully  voluminous  of 
his  writings,  which  he  asks  you  to  read  over, 
think  over,  and  pray  over,  and  send  back  an 
answer  informing  him  whether  fame  and 
fortune  are  awaiting  him  as  the  possessor  of 
the  wonderful  gifts  his  writings  manifest, 
and  whether  you  advise  him  to  leave  all,  — 
the  shop  he  sweeps  out  every  morning,  the 
ledger  he  posts,  the  mortar  in  which  he 
pounds,  the  bench  at  which  he  urges  the 
reluctant  plane,  —  and  follow  his  genius 
whithersoever  it  may  lead  him.  The  next 
correspondent  wants  you  to  mark  out  a 
whole  course  of  life  for  him,  and  the  means 
of  judgment  he  gives  you  are  about  as  ade 
quate  as  the  brick  which  the  simpleton  of 


222  THE  POET  AT 

old  carried  round  as  an  advertisement  of 
the  house  he  had  to  sell.  My  advice  to  all 
the  young  men  that  write  to  me  depends 
somewhat  on  the  handwriting  and  spelling. 
If  these  are  of  a  certain  character,  and  they 
have  reached  a  mature  age,  I  recommend 
some  honest  manual  calling,  such  as  they 
have  very  probably  been  bred  to,  and  which 
will,  at  least,  give  them  a  chance  of  becom 
ing  President  of  the  United  States  by  and 
by,  if  that  is  any  object  to  them.  What 
would  you  have  done  with  the  young  person 
who  called  on  me  a  good  many  years  ago,  — 
so  many  that  he  has  probably  forgotten  his 
literary  effort,  —  and  read  as  specimens  of 
his  literary  workmanship  lines  like  those 
which  I  will  favor  you  with  presently  ?  He 
was  an  able-bodied,  grown-up  young  person, 
whose  ingenuousness  interested  me  ;  and  I 
am  sure  if  I  thought  he  would  ever  be 
pained  to  see  his  maiden  effort  in  print,  I 
would  deny  myself  the  pleasure  of  submit 
ting  it  to  the  reader.  The  following  is  an 
exact  transcript  of  the  lines  he  showed  me, 
and  which  I  took  down  on  the  spot :  — 

"  Are  you  in  the  vein  for  cider  ? 
Are  yon  in  the  time  for  pork  ? 
Hist  !  for  Betty  's  cleared  the  larder 
And  turned  the  pork  to  soap." 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  223 

Do  not  judge  too  hastily  this  sincere  effort 
of  a  maiden  muse.  Here  was  a  sense  of 
rhythm,  and  an  effort  in  the  direction  of 
rhyme  ;  here  was  an  honest  transcript  of  an 
occurrence  of  daily  life,  told  with  a  certain 
idealizing  expression,  recognizing  the  exist 
ence  of  impulses,  mysterious  instincts,  im 
pelling  us  even  in  the  selection  of  our  bodily 
sustenance.  But  I  had  to  tell  him  that  it 
wanted  dignity  of  incident  and  grace  of  nar 
rative,  that  there  was  no  atmosphere  to  it, 
nothing  of  the  light  that  never  was  and  so 
forth.  I  did  not  say  this  in  these  very 
words,  but  I  gave  him  to  understand,  with 
out  being  too  hard  upon  him,  that  he  had 
better  not  desert  his  honest  toil  in  pursuit 
of  the  poet's  bays.  This,  it  must  be  con 
fessed,  was  a  rather  discouraging  case.  A 
young  person  like  this  may  pierce,  as  the 
Frenchmen  say,  by  and  by,  but  the  chances 
are  all  the  other  way. 

I  advise  aimless  young  men  to  choose 
some  profession  without  needless  delay,  and 
so  get  into  a  good  strong  current  of  human 
affairs,  and  find  themselves  bound  up  in  in 
terests  with  a  compact  body  of  their  fellow- 
men. 

I  advise  young  women  who  write  to  me 
for  counsel,  —  perhaps  I  do  not  advise  them 


224  THE  POET  AT 

at  all,  only  sympathize  a  little  with  them, 
and  listen  to  what  they  have  to  say  (eight 
closely  written  pages  on  the  average,  which 
I  always  read  from  beginning  to  end,  think 
ing  of  the  widow's  cruse  and  myself  in  the 
character  of  Elijah)  and  — and  —  come  now, 
I  don't  believe  Methuselah  would  tell  you 
what  he  said  in  his  letters  to  young  ladiess 
written  when  he  was  in  his  nine  hundred 
and  sixty-ninth  year. 

But,  dear  me  !  how  much  work  all  this 
private  criticism  involves  !  An  editor  has 
only  to  say  "  respectfully  declined,"  and 
there  is  the  end  of  it.  But  the  confidential 
adviser  is  expected  to  give  the  reasons  of  his 
likes  and  dislikes  in  detail,  and  sometimes 
to  enter  into  an  argument  for  their  support. 
That  is  more  than  any  martyr  can  stand, 
but  what  trials  he  must  go  through,  as  it  is ! 
Great  bundles  of  manuscripts,  verse  or  prose, 
which  the  recipient  is  expected  to  read,  per 
haps  to  recommend  to  a  publisher,  at  any 
rate  to  express  a  well-digested  and  agreeably 
flavored  opinion  about ;  which  opinion,  nine 
times  out  of  ten,  disguise  it  as  we  may,  has 
to  be  a  bitter  draught ;  every  form  of  ego 
tism,  conceit,  false  sentiment,  hunger  for  no 
toriety,  and  eagerness  for  display  of  anserine 
plumage  before  the  admiring  public  ;  —  all 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  225 

these  come  in  by  mail  or  express,  covered 
with  postage-stamps  of  so  much  more  cost 
than  the  value  of  the  waste  words  they  over 
lie,  that  one  comes  at  last  to  groan  and 
change  color  at  the  very  sight  of  a  package, 
and  to  dread  the  postman's  knock  as  if  it 
were  that  of  the  other  visitor  whose  naked 
knuckles  rap  at  every  door. 

Still  there  are  experiences  which  go  far 
towards  repaying  all  these  inflictions.  My 
last  young  man's  case  looked  desperate 
enough  ;  some  of  his  sails  had  blown  from 
the  rigging,  some  were  backing  in  the  wind, 
and  some  were  flapping  and  shivering,  but  I 
told  him  which  way  to  head,  and  to  my  sur 
prise  he  promised  to  do  just  as  I  directed, 
and  I  do  not  doubt  is  under  full  sail  at  this 
moment. 

What  if  I  should  tell  my  last,  my  very 
recent  experience  with  the  other  sex  ?  I  re 
ceived  a  paper  containing  the  inner  history 
of  a  young  woman's  life,  the  evolution  of 
her  consciousness  from  its  earliest  record  of 
itself,  written  so  thoughtfully,  so  sincere^, 
with  so  much  firmness  and  yet  so  much  deli 
cacy,  with  such  truth  of  detail  and  such 
grace  in  the  manner  of  telling,  that  I  fin 
ished  the  long  manuscript  almost  at  a  sitting, 
with  a  pleasure  rarely,  almost  never  experi 


226  THE  POET  AT 

encecl  in  voluminous  communications  which 
one  has  to  spell  out  of  handwriting.  This 
was  from  a  correspondent  who  made  my  ac 
quaintance  by  letter  when  she  was  little 
more  than  a  child,  some  years  ago.  How 
easy  at  that  early  period  to  have  silenced 
her  by  indifference,  to  have  wounded  her  by 
a  careless  epithet,  perhaps  even  to  have 
crushed  her  as  one  puts  his  heel  on  a  weed  ! 
A  very  little  encouragement  kept  her  from 
despondency,  and  brought  back  one  of  those 
overflows  of  gratitude  which  make  one  more 
ashamed  of  himself  for  being  so  overpaid, 
than  he  would  be  for  having  committed  any 
of  the  lesser  sins.  But  what  pleased  me 
most  in  the  paper  lately  received  was  to  see 
how  far  the  writer  had  outgrown  the  need 
of  any  encouragement  of  mine  ;  that  she  had 
strengthened  out  of  her  tremulous  question 
ings  into  a  self-reliance  and  self-poise  which 
I  had  hardly  dared  to  anticipate  for  her. 
Some  of  my  readers  who  are  also  writers 
have  very  probably  had  more  numerous  ex 
periences  of  this  kind  than  I  can  lay  claim 
to  ;  self-revelations  from  unknown  and  some 
times  nameless  friends,  who  write  from 
strange  corners  where  the  winds  have  wafted 
some  stray  words  of  theirs  which  have 
lighted  in  the  minds  and  reached  the  hearts 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  227 

of  those  to  whom  they  were  as  the  angel  that 
stirred  the  pool  of  Bethesda.  Perhaps  this 
is  the  best  reward  authorship  brings  ;  it  may 
not  imply  much  talent  or  literary  excellence, 
but  it  means  that  your  way  of  thinking  and 
feeling  is  just  what  some  one  of  your  fellow- 
creatures  needed. 

—  I  have  been  putting  into  shape,  accord 
ing  to  his  request,  some  further  passages 
from  the  young  Astronomer's  manuscript, 
some  of  which  the  reader  will  have  a  chance 
to  read  if  he  is  so  disposed.  The  conflict  in 
the  young  man's  mind  between  the  desire 
for  fame  and  the  sense  of  its  emptiness  as 
compared  with  nobler  aims  has  set  me  think 
ing  about  the  subject  from  a  somewhat  hum 
bler  point  of  view.  As  I  am  in  the  habit  of 
telling  you,  Beloved,  many  of  my  thoughts, 
as  well  as  of  repeating  what  was  said  at  our 
table,  you  may  read  what  follows  as  if  it 
were  addressed  to  you  in  the  course  of  an 
ordinary  conversation,  where  I  claimed 
rather  more  than  my  share,  as  I  am  afraid  I 
am  a  little  in  the  habit  of  doing. 

I  suppose  we  all,  those  of  us  who  write  in 
verse  or  prose,  have  the  habitual  feeling  that 
we  should  like  to  be  remembered-  It  is  to 


228  THE  POET  AT 

be  awake  when  all  of  those  who  were  round 
us  have  been  long  wrapped  in  slumber.  It 
is  a  pleasant  thought  enough  that  the  name 
by  which  we  have  been  called  shall  be  famil 
iar  on  the  lips  of  those  who  come  after  us, 
and  the  thoughts  that  wrought  themselves 
out  in  our  intelligence,  the  emotions  that 
trembled  through  our  frames,  shall  live 
themselves  over  again  in  the  minds  and 
hearts  of  others. 

But  is  there  not  something  of  rest,  of  calm, 
in  the  thought  of  gently  and  gradually  fading 
away  out  of  human  remembrance?  What 
line  have  we  written  that  was  on  a  level  with 
our  conceptions  ?  What  page-  of  ours  that 
does  not  betray  some  weakness  we  would 
fain  have  left  unrecorded?  To  become  a 
classic  and  share  the  life  of  a  language  is  to 

O  O 

be  ever  open  to  criticisms,  to  comparisons, 
to  the  caprices  of  successive  generations,  to 
be  called  into  court  and  stand  a  trial  be 
fore  a  new  jury,  once  or  more  than  once  in 
every  century.  To  be  forgotten  is  to  sleep 
in  peace  with  the  undisturbed  myriads,  no 
longer  subject  to  the  chills  and  heats,  the 
blasts,  the  sleet,  the  dust,  which  assail  in  end 
less  succession  that  shadow  of  a  man  which 
we  call  his  reputation.  The  line  which  dying 
we  could  wish  to  blot  has  been  blotted  out  for 


TUE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  229 

us  by  a  hand  so  tender,  so  patient,  so  used 
to  its  kindly  task,  that  the  page  looks  as  fair 
as  if  it  had  never  borne  the  record  of  our 
infirmity  or  our  transgression.  And  then 
so  few  would  be  wholly  content  with  their 
legacy  of  fame.  You  remember  poor  Mon 
sieur  Jacques's  complaint  of  the  favoritism 
shown  to  Monsieur  Berthier,  —  it  is  in  that 
exquisite  "  Week  in  a  French  Coun try- 
House."  "  Have  you  seen  his  room  ?  Have 
you  seen  how  large  it  is  ?  Twice  as  large  as 
mine  !  He  has  two  jugs,  a  large  one  and  a 
little  one.  I  have  only  one  small  one.  And 
a  tea-service  and  a  gilt  Cupid  on  the  top  of 
his  looking-glass."  The  famous  survivor  of 
himself  has  had  his  features  preserved  in  a 
medallion,  and  the  slice  of  his  countenance 
seems  clouded  with  the  thought  that  it  does 
not  belong  to  a  bust ;  the  bust  ought  to  look 
happy  in  its  niche,  but  the  statue  opposite 
makes  it  feel  as  if  it  had  been  cheated  out 
of  half  its  personality,  and  the  statue  looks 
uneasy  because  another  stands  on  a  loftier 
pedestal.  But  "  Ignotus  "  and  "  Miserri- 
mus  "  are  of  the  great  majority  in  that  vast 
assembly,  that  House  of  Commons  whose 
members  are  all  peers,  where  to  be  forgotten 
is  the  standing  rule.  The  dignity  of  a  silent 
memory  is  not  to  be  undervalued.  Fame  is 


230  THE  POET  AT 

after  all  a  kind  of  rude  handling,  and  a 
name  that  is  often  on  vulgar  lips  seems  to 
borrow  something  not  to  be  desired,  as  the 
paper  money  that  passes  from  hand  to  hand 
gains  somewhat  which  is  a  loss  thereby.  O 
sweet,  tranquil  refuge  of  oblivion,  so  far  as 
earth  is  concerned,  for  us  poor  blundering, 
stammering,  misbehaving  creatures  who  can 
not  turn  over  a  leaf  of  our  life's  diary  with 
out  feeling  thankful  that  its  failure  can  no 
longer  stare  us  in  the  face  !  Not  unwelcome 
shall  be  the  baptism  of  dust  which  hides  for 
ever  the  name  that  was  given  in  the  baptism 
of  water !  We  shall  have  good  company 
whose  names  are  left  unspoken  by  posterity. 
"  Who  knows  whether  the  best  of  men  be 
l^nown,  or  whether  there  be  not  more  remark 
able  persons  forgot  than  any  that  stand  re 
membered  in  the  known  account  of  time  ? 
The  greater  part  must  be  content  to  be  as 
though  they  had  not  been  ;  to  be  found  in 
the  register  of  God,  not  in  the  record  of 
man.  Twenty-seven  names  make  up  the 
first  story  before  the  flood,  and  the  recorded 
names  ever  since  contain  not  one  living  cen 
tury." 

I  have  my  moods  about  such  things  an 
the  young  Astronomer  has,  as  we  all  have. 
The  e  are  times  when  the  thought  of  becoin- 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  231 

ing  utterly  nothing  to  the  world  we  knew  so 
well  and  loved  so  much  is  painful  and  op 
pressive  ;  we  gasp  as  if  in  a  vacuum,  missing 
the  atmosphere  of  life  we  have  so  long  been 
in  the  habit  of  breathing.  Not  the  less  are 
there  moments  when  the  aching  need  of  re 
pose  comes  over  us  and  the  requiescat  in 
pace,  heathen  benediction  as  it  is,  sounds 
more  sweetly  in  our  ears  than  all  the  prom 
ises  that  Fame  can  hold  out  to  us. 

I  wonder  whether  it  ever  occurred  to  you 
to  reflect  upon  another  horror  there  must  be 
in  leaving  a  name  behind  you.  Think  what 
a  horrid  piece  of  work  the  biographers  make 
of  a  man's  private  history  !  Just  imagine 
the  subject  of  one  of  those  extraordinary 
fictions  called  biographies  coming  back  and 
reading  the  life  of  himself,  written  very  prob 
ably  by  somebody  or  other  who  thought  he 
could  turn  a  penny  by  doing  it,  and  having 
the  pleasure  of  seeing 

"  His  little  bark  attendant  sail, 
Pursue  the  triumph  and  partake  the  gale." 

The  ghost  of  the  person  condemned  to  walk 
the  earth  in  a  biography  glides  into  a  public 
library,  and  goes  to  the  shelf  where  his  mum 
mied  life  lies  in  its  paper  cerements.  I  can 


232  THE  POET  AT 

see  the  pale  shadow  glancing  through  the 
pages  and  hear  the  comments  that  shape 
themselves  in  the  bodiless  intelligence  as  if 
they  were  made  vocal  by  living  lips. 

"  Born  in  July,  1776  !  "  And  my  hon 
ored  father  killed  at  the  battle  of  Bunker 
Hill!  Atrocious  libeller!  to  slander  one's 
family  at  the  start  after  such  a  fashion  ! 

"  The  death  of  his  parents  left  him  in 
charge  of  his  Aunt  Nancy,  whose  tender  care 
took  the  place  of  those  parental  attentions 
which  should  have  guided  and  protected  his 
infant  years,  and  consoled  him  for  the  sever 
ity  of  another  relative." 

—  Aunt  Nancy  !  It  was  Aunt  Betsey,  you 
fool !  Aunt  Nancy  used  to  —  she  has  been 
dead  these  eighty  years,  so  there  is  no  use  in 
mincing  matters  —  she  used  to  keep  a  bottle 
and  a  stick,  and  when  she  had  been  tasting  a 
drop  out  of  the  bottle  the  stick  used  to  come 
off  the  shelf  and  I  had  to  taste  that.  And 
here  she  is  made  a  saint  of,  and  poor  Aunt 
Betsey,  that  did  everything  for  me,  is  slan 
dered  by  implication  as  a  horrid  tyrant ! 

"  The  subject  of  this  commemorative  his 
tory  was  remarkable  for  a  precocious  devel 
opment  of  intelligence.  An  old  nurse  who 
saw  him  at  the  very  earliest  period  of  his 
existence  is  said  to  have  spoken  of  him  as 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  233 

one  of  the  most  promising  infants  she  had 
seen  in  her  long  experience.  At  school  he 
was  equally  remarkable,  and  at  a  tender  age 
he  received  a  paper  adorned  with  a  cut,  in 
scribed  REWARD  OF  MERIT." 

—  I  don't  doubt  the  nurse  said  that,  — 
there  were  several  promising  children  born 
about  that  time.  As  for  cuts,  I  got  more 
from  the  schoolmaster's  rattan  than  in  any 
other  shape.  Didn't  one  of  my  teachers 
split  a  Gunter's  scale  into  three  pieces  over 
the  palm  of  my  hand?  And  didn't  I  grin 
when  I  saw  the  pieces  fly  ?  No  humbug, 
now,  about  my  boyhood  ! 

"  His  personal  appearance  was  not  singu 
larly  prepossessing.  Inconspicuous  in  stat 
ure  and  unattractive  in  features  " 

-  You  misbegotten  son  of  an  ourang  and 
grandson  of  an  ascidian  (ghosts  keep  np 
with  science,  you  observe),  what  business 
have  you  to  be  holding  up  my  person  to  the 
contempt  of  my  posterity  ?  Have  n't  I  been 
sleeping  for  this  many  a  year  in  quiet,  and 
don't  the  dandelions  and  buttercups  look 
as  yellow  over  me  as  over  the  best-looking 
neighbor  I  have  in  the  dormitory  ?  Why  do 
you  want  to  people  the  minds  of  everybody 
that  reads  your  good-for-nothing  libel  which 
you  call  a  "  biography  "  with  your  impudent 


234  THE  POET  AT 

caricatures  of  a  man  who  was  a  better-look 
ing  fellow  than  yourself,  I  '11  bet  you  ten  to 
one,  a  man  whom  his  Latin  tutor  called 
formosus  puer  when  he  was  only  a  fresh 
man  ?  If  that 's  what  it  means  to  make  a 
reputation,  —  to  leave  your  character  and 
your  person,  and  the  good  name  of  your 
sainted  relatives,  and  all  you  were,  and  all 
you  had  and  thought  and  felt,  so  far  as  can 
be  gathered  by  digging  you  out  of  your  most 
private  records,  to  be  manipulated  and  ban 
died  about  and  cheapened  in  the  literary 
market  as  a  chicken  or  a  turkey  or  a  goose 
is  handled  and  bargained  over  at  a  provision 
stall,  isn't  it  better  to  be  content  with  the 
honest  blue  slate-stone  and  its  inscription 
informing  posterity  that  you  were  a  worthy 
citizen  and  a  respected  father  of  a  family  ? 

—  I  should  like  to  see  any  man's  biogra 
phy  with  corrections  and  emendations  by  his 
ghost.  We  don't  know  each  other's  secrets 
quite  so  well  as  we  flatter  ourselves  we  do. 
We  don't  always  know  our  own  secrets  as 
well  as  we  might.  You  have  seen  a  tree 
with  different  grafts  upon  it,  an  apple  or  a 
pear  tree  we  will  say.  In  the  late  summer 
months  the  fruit  on  one  bough  will  ripen  ;  I 
remember  just  such  a  tree,  and  the  early 
ripening  fruit  was  the  Jargonelle.  By  and 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  235 

by  the  fruit  of  another  bough  will  begin  to 
come  into  condition  ;  the  lovely  Saint  Mi 
chael,  as  I  remember,  grew  on  the  same 
stock  as  the  Jargonelle  in  the  tree  I  am 
thinking  of  ;  and  then,  when  these  have  all 
fallen  or  been  gathered,  another,  we  will  say 
the  Winter  Nelis,  has  its  turn,  and  so,  out 
of  the  same  juices  have  come  in  succession 
fruits  of  the  most  varied  aspects  and  flavors. 
It  is  the  same  thing  with  ourselves,  but  it 
takes  us  a  long  while  to  find  it  out.  The 
various  inherited  instincts  ripen  in  succes 
sion.  You  may  be  nine  tenths  paternal  at 
one  period  of  your  life,  and  nine  tenths  ma 
ternal  at  another.  All  at  once  the  traits  of 
some  immediate  ancestor  may  come  to  ma 
turity  unexpectedly  on  one  of  the  branches 
of  your  character,  just  as  your  features  at 
different  periods  of  your  life  betray  different 
resemblances  to  your  nearer  or  more  remote 
relatives. 

But  I  want  you  to  let  me  go  back  to  the 
Bunker  Hill  Monument  and  the  dynasty  of 
twenty  or  thirty  centuries  whose  successive 
representatives  are  to  sit  in  the  gate,  like  the 
Jewish  monarchs,  while  the  people  shall 
come  by  hundreds  and  by  thousands  to  visit 
the  memorial  shaft  until  the  story  of  Bun 
ker's  Hill  is  as  old  as  that  of  Marathon. 


236  THE  POET  AT 

Would  not  one  like  to  attend  twenty  con 
secutive  soirees,  at  each  one  of  which  the 
lion  of  the  party  should  be  the  Man  of  the 
Monument,  at  the  beginning  of  each  century, 
all  the  way,  we  will  say,  from  Anno  Domini 
2000  to  Ann.  Dom.  4000,  —  or,  if  you  think 
the  style  of  dating  will  be  changed,  say  to 
Ann.  Darwinii  (we  can  keep  A.  D.  you  see) 
1872?  Will  the  Man  be  of  the  Indian 
type,  as  President  Samuel  Stanhope  Smith 
and  others  have  supposed  the  transplanted 
European  will  become  by  and  by  ?  Will  he 
have  shortened  down  to  four  feet  and  a  little 
more,  like  the  Esquimaux,  or  will  he  have 
been  bred  up  to  seven  feet  by  the  use  of  new 
chemical  diets,  ozonized  and  otherwise  im 
proved  atmospheres,  and  animal  fertilizers  ? 
Let  us  summon  him  in  imagination  and  ask 
him  a  few  questions. 

Is  n't  it  like  splitting  a  toad  out  of  a  rock 
to  think  of  this  man  of  nineteen  or  twenty 
centuries  hence  coming  out  from  his  stony 
dwelling-place  and  speaking  with  us  ?  What 
are  the  questions  we  should  ask  him  ?  He 
has  but  a  few  minutes  to  stay.  Make  out 
your  own  list ;  I  will  set  down  a  few  that 
come  up  to  me  as  I  write. 

-  What  is  the  prevalent  religious  creed 
of  civilization  ? 


THE  BEEAKFAST-TABLE.  237 

—  Has  the  planet  met  with  any  accident 
of  importance? 

—  How  general  is  the  republican  form  of 
government  ? 

—  Do  men  fly  yet  ? 

—  Has  the  universal  language  come  into 
use? 

—  Is  there  a  new  fuel  since  the  English 
coal-mines  have  given  out  ? 

—  Is  the  euthanasia  a  recognized  branch 
of  medical  science  ? 

—  Is  the  oldest  inhabitant  still  living  ? 

—  Is  the  Daily  Advertiser  still  published  ? 

—  And  the  Evening  Transcript  ? 

—  Is  there    much  inquiry  for  the  works 
of  a  writer  of  the  nineteenth  century  (Old 
Style)  by  —  the  —  name of  —  of  — 

My  tongue  cleaves  to  the  roof  of  my  mouth. 
I  cannot  imagine  the  putting  of  that  ques 
tion  without  feeling  the  tremors  which  shake  a 
wooer  as  he  falters  out  the  words  the  answer 
to  which  will  make  him  happy  or  wretched. 

Whose  works  was  I  going  to  question  him 
about,  do  you  ask  me  ? 

O,  the  writings  of  a  friend  of  mine,  much 
esteemed  by  his  relatives  and  others.  But 
it 's  of  no  consequence,  after  all ;  I  think  he 
says  he  does  not  care  much  for  posthumous 
reputation. 


238  THE  POET  AT 

I  find  something  of  the  same  interest  in 
thinking  about  one  of  the  boarders  at  our 
table  that  I  find  in  my  waking  dreams  con 
cerning  the  Man  of  the  Monument.  This 
personage  is  the  Register  of  Deeds.  He  is 
an  unemotional  character,  living  in  his  busi 
ness  almost  as  exclusively  as  the  Scarabee, 
but  without  any  of  that  eagerness  and  enthusi 
asm  which  belong  to  our  scientific  specialist. 
His  work  is  largely,  principally,  I  may  say, 
mechanical.  He  has  developed,  however,  a 
certain  amount  of  taste  for  the  antiquities  of 
his  department,  and  once  in  a  while  brings 
out  some  curious  result  of  his  investigations 
into  ancient  documents.  He  too  belongs  to 
a  dynasty  which  will  last  as  long  as  there  is 
such  a  thing  as  property  in  land  and  dwell 
ings.  When  that  is  done  away  with,  and  we 
return  to  the  state  of  villanage,  holding  our 
tenement-houses,  all  to  be  of  the  same  pat 
tern,  of  the  State,  —  that  is  to  say,  of  the 
Tammany  Ring  which  is  to  take  the  place 
of  the  feudal  lord,  —  the  office  of  Register 
of  Deeds  will,  I  presume,  become  useless, 
and  the  dynasty  will  be  deposed. 

As    we    crow  older  we   think  more   and 

O 

more  of  old  persons  and  of  old  things  and 
places.  As  to  old  persons,  it  seems  as  if 
we  never  know  how  much  they  have  to  tell 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  239 

until  we  are  old  ourselves  and  they  have 
been  gone  twenty  or  thirty  years.  Once  in 
a  while  we  come  upon  some  survivor  of  his 
or  her  generation  that  we  have  overlooked, 
and  feel  as  if  we  had  recovered  one  of  the 
lost  books  of  Livy  or  fished  up  the  golden 
candlestick  from  the  ooze  of  the  Tiber.  So 
it  was  the  other  day  after  my  reminis 
cences  of  the  old  gambrel-roofed  house  and 
its  visitors.  They  found  an  echo  in  the  rec 
ollections  of  one  of  the  brightest  and  liveli 
est  of  my  suburban  friends,  whose  memory 
is  exact  about  everything  except  her  own 
age,  which,  there  can  be  no  doubt,  she 
makes  out  a  score  or  two  of  years  more 
than  it  really  is.  Still  she  was  old  enough 
to  touch  some  lights  —  and  a  shadow  or 
two  —  into  the  portraits  I  had  drawn,  which 
made  me  wish  that  she  and  not  I  had  been 
the  artist  who  sketched  the  pictures.  Among 
the  lesser  regrets  that  mingle  with  graver 
sorrows  for  the  friends  of  an  earlier  genera 
tion  we  have  lost,  are  our  omissions  to  ask 
them  so  many  questions  they  could  have  an 
swered  easily  enough,  and  would  have  been 
pleased  to  be  asked.  There !  I  say  to  my 
self  sometimes,  in  an  absent  mood,  I  must 
ask  her  about  that.  But  she  of  whom  I  am 
now  thinking  has  long  been  beyond  the 


240  THE  POET  AT 

reach  of  any  earthly  questioning,  and  I  sigh 
to  think  how  easily  I  could  have  learned 
some  fact  which  I  should  have  been  happy 
to  have  transmitted  with  pious  care  to  those 
who  are  to  come  after  me.  How  many  times 
I  have  heard  her  quote  the  line  about  bless 
ings  brightening  as  they  take  their  flight, 
and  how  true  it  proves  in  many  little  ways 
that  one  never  thinks  of  until  it  is  too  late  ! 
The  Register  of  Deeds  is  not  himself  ad 
vanced  in  years.  But  he  borrows  an  air  of 
antiquity  from  the  ancient  records  which 
are  stored  in  his  sepulchral  archives.  I  love 
to  go  to  his  ossuary  of  dead  transactions,  as 
I  would  visit  the  catacombs  of  Rome  or 
Paris.  It  is  like  wandering  up  the  Nile  to 
stray  among  the  shelves  of  his  monumental 
folios.  Here  stands  a  series  of  volumes, 
extending  over  a  considerable  number  of 
years,  all  of  which  volumes  are  in  his  hand 
writing.  But  as  you  go  backward  there  is 
a  break,  and  you  come  upon  the  writing  of 
another  person,  who  was  getting  old  appar 
ently,  for  it  is  beginning  to  be  a  little  shaky, 
and  then  you  know  that  you  have  gone  back 
as  far  as  the  last  days  of  his  predecessor. 
Thirty  or  forty  years  more  carry  you  to  the 
time  when  this  incumbent  began  the  duties 
of  his  office  ;  his  hand  was  steady  then ; 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  241 

and  the  next  volume  beyond  it  in  date  be 
trays  the  work  of  a  still  different  writer. 
All  this  interests  me,  but  I  do  not  see  how 
it  is  going  to  interest  my  reader.  I  do  not 
feel  very  happy  about  the  Register  of  Deeds. 
What  can  I  do  with  him  ?  Of  what  use  is 
he  going  to  be  in  my  record  of  what  I  have 
seen  and  heard  at  the  breakfast-table  ?  The 
fact  of  his  being  one  of  the  boarders  was  not 
so  important  that  I  was  obliged  to  speak  of 
him,  and  I  might  just  as  well  have  drawn 
on  my  imagination  and  not  allowed  this 
dummy  to  take  up  the  room  which  another 
guest  might  have  profitably  filled  at  our 
breakfast-table. 

I  suppose  he  will  prove  a  superfluity,  but 
I  have  got  him  on  my  hands,  and  I  mean 
that  he  shall  be  as  little  in  the  way  as  possi 
ble.  One  always  comes  across  people  in 
actual  life  who  have  no  particular  business 
to  be  where  we  find  them,  and  whose  right 
to  be  at  all  is  somewhat  questionable. 

I  am  not  going  to  get  rid  of  the  Register 
of  Deeds  by  putting  him  out  of  the  way ; 
but  I  confess  I  do  not  see  of  what  service 
he  is  going  to  be  to  me  in  my  record.  I 
have  often  found,  however,  that  the  Dis 
poser  of  men  and  things  understands  much 
better  than  we  do  how  to  place  his  pawns  and 


242  THE  rOET  AT 

other  pieces  on  the  chess-board  of  life.  A 
fish  more  or  less  in  the  ocean  does  not  seem 
to  amount  to  much.  It  is  not  extravagant 
to  say  that  any  one  fish  may  be  considered 
a  supernumerary.  But  when  Captain  Co- 
ram's  ship  sprung  a  leak  and  the  carpenter 
could  not  stop  it,  and  the  passengers  had 
made  up  their  minds  that  it  was  all  over 
with  them,  all  at  once,  without  any  appar 
ent  reason,  the  pumps  began  gaining  on  the 
leak,  and  the  sinking  ship  to  lift  herself  out 
of  the  abyss  which  was  swallowing  her  up. 
And  what  do  you  think  it  was  that  saved 
the  ship,  and  Captain  Coram,  and  so  in  due 
time  gave  to  London  that  Foundling  Hos 
pital  which  he  endowed,  and  under  the  floor 
of  which  he  lies  buried  ?  Why,  it  was  that 
very  supernumerary  fish,  which  we  held  of 
so  little  account,  but  which  had  wedged 
itself  into  the  rent  of  the  yawning  planks, 
and  served  to  keep  out  the  water  until  the 
leak  was  finally  stopped. 

I  am  very  sure  it  was  Captain  Coram,  but 
I  almost  hope  it  was  somebody  else,  in  order 
to  give  some  poor  fellow  who  is  lying  in 
wait  for  the  periodicals  a  chance  to  correct 
me.  That  will  make  him  happy  for  a 
month,  and  besides,  he  will  not  want  to  pick 
a  quarrel  about  anything  else  if  he  has  that 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  243 

splendid  triumph.     You  remember  Alcibia- 
des  and  his  dog's  tail. 

Here  you  have  the  extracts  I  spoke  of 
from  the  manuscript  placed  in  my  hands  for 
revision  and  emendation.  I  can  understand 
these  alternations  of  feeling  in  a  young  per 
son  who  has  been  long  absorbed  in  a  single 
pursuit,  and  in  whom  the  human  instincts 
which  have  been  long  silent  are  now  begin 
ning  to  find  expression.  I  know  well  what 
he  wants  ;  a  great  deal  better,  I  think,  than 
he  knows  himself. 

WIND-CLOUDS  AND  STAR-DRIFTS. 

n. 

Brief  glimpses  of  the  bright  celestial  spheres, 
False    lights,    false    shadows,    vague,    uncertain 

gleams, 

Pale  vaporous  mists,  wan  streaks  of  lurid  flame, 
The  climbing  of  the  upward-sailing  cloud, 
The  sinking  of  the  downward-falling  star,  — 
All  these  are  pictures  of  the  changing  moods 
Borne  through  the  midnight  stillness  of  my  soul. 

Here  am  I,  bound  upon  this  pillared  rock, 
Prey  to  the  vulture  of  a  vast  desire 
That  feeds  upon  my  life.     I  burst  my  bands 
And  steal  a  moment's  freedom  from  the  beak, 
The  clinging  talons  and  the  shadowing  plumes ; 


244  THE  POET  AT 

Then  comes  the  false  enchantress,  with  her  song ; 
"  Thou  wouldst  not  lay  thy  forehead  in  the  dust 
Like  the  base  herd  that  feeds  and  breeds  and 

dies ! 

Lo,  the  fair  garlands  that  I  weave  for  thee, 
Unchanging  as  the  belt  Orion  wears, 
Bright  as  the  jewels  of  the  seven-starred  Crown, 
The  spangled  stream  of  Berenice's  hair !  " 
And  so  she  twines  the  fetters  with  the  flowers 
Around  my  yielding  limbs,  and  the  fierce  bird 
Stoops  to  his  quarry,  —  then  to  feed  his  rage 
Of  ravening  hunger  I  must  drain  my  blood 
And  let  the  dew-drenched,  poison-breeding  night 
Steal  all  the  freshness  from  my  fading  cheek, 
And  leave  its  shadows  round  my  caverned  eyes. 
All  for  a  line  in  some  unheeded  scroll ; 
All  for  a  stone  that  tells  to  gaping  clowns, 
"  Here  lies  a  restless  wretch  beneath  a  clod 
Where  squats   the  jealous   nightmare   men    call 

Fame  !  " 

I  marvel  not  at  him  who  scorns  his  kind 
And  thinks  not  sadly  of  the  time  foretold 
When  the  old  hulk  we  tread  shall  be  a  wreck, 
A  slag,  a  cinder  drifting  through  the  sky 
Without  its  crew  of  fools  !     We  live  too  long 
And  even  so  are  not  content  to  die, 
But  load  the  mould  that  covers  up  our  bones 
With  stones  that  stand  like  beggars  by  the  road 
And  show  death's  grievous  wound  and   ask  for 
tears ; 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  245 

Write  our  great  books  to  teach  men  who  we  are, 
Sing  our  fine  songs  that  tell  in  artful  phrase 
The  secrets  of  our  lives,  and  plead  and  pray 
For  alms  of  memory  with  the  after  time, 
Those  few  swift  seasons  while  the  earth  shall 

wear 

Its  leafy  summers,  ere  its  core  grows  cold 
And  the  moist  life  of  all  that  breathes  shall  die ; 
Or  as  the  new-born  seer,  perchance  more  wise, 
Would  have  us  deem,  before  its  growing  mass, 
Pelted  with  star-dust,  stoned  with  meteor-balls, 
Heats  like  a  hammered  anvil,  till  at  last 
Man  and  his  works  and  all  that  stirred  itself 
Of  its  own  motion,  in  the  fiery  glow 
Turns  to  a  flaming  vapor,  and  our  orb 
Shines  a  new  sun  for  earths  that  shall  be  born. 

I  am  as  old  as  Egypt  to  myself, 

Brother  to  them  that  squared  the  pyramids 

By  the  same  stars  I  watch.     I  read  the  page 

Where  every  letter  is  a  glittering  world, 

With  them  who  looked  from  Shinar's  clay-built 

towers, 

Ere  yet  the  wanderer  of  the  Midland  sea 
Had  missed  the  fallen  sister  of  the  seven. 
T  dwell  in  spaces  vague,  remote,  unknown, 
Save  to  the  silent  few,  who,  leaving  earth, 
Quit  all  communion  with  their  living  time. 
I  lose  myself  in  that  ethereal  void, 
Till  I  have  tired  my  wings  and  long  to  fill 
My  breast  with  denser  air,  to  stand,  to  walk 


246     POET  AT  THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE. 

With  eyes  not  raised  above  my  fellow-men. 

Sick  of  my  unwalled,  solitary  realm, 

I  ask  to  change  the  myriad  lifeless  worlds 

I  visit  as  mine  own  for  one  poor  patch 

Of  this  dull  spheroid  and  a  little  breath 

To  shape  in  word  or  deed  to  serve  my  kind. 

Was  ever  giant's  dungeon  dug  so  deep, 
Was  ever  tyrant's  fetter  forged  so  strong, 
Was  e'er  such  deadly  poison  in  the  draught 
The  false  wife  mingles  for  the  trusting  fool, 
As  he  whose  willing  victim  is  himself, 
Digs,  forges,  mingles,  for  his  captive  soul  ? 


VII. 

T  WAS  very  sure  that  the  old  Master  was 
hard  at  work  about   something,  —  he  is 
ahvays  very  busy  with  something,  —  but  I 
mean  something  particular. 

Whether  it  was  a  question  of  history  or 
of  cosmogony,  or  whether  he  was  handling  a 
test-tube  or  a  blow-pipe  ;  what  he  was  about 
I  did  not  feel  sure  ;  but  I  took  it  for  granted 
that  it  was  some  crucial  question  or  other  he 
was  at  work  on,  some  point  bearing  on  the 
thought  of  the  time.  For  the  Master,  I 
have  observed,  is  pretty  sagacious  in  strik 
ing  for  the  points  where  his  work  will  be 
like  to  tell.  We  all  know  that  class  of 
scientific  laborers  to  whom  all  facts  are  alike 
nourishing  mental  food,  and  who  seem  to 
exercise  no  choice  whatever,  provided  only 
they  can  get  hold  of  these  same  indiscrim 
inate  facts  in  quantity  sufficient.  They 
browse  on  them,  as  the  animal  to  which  they 


248  THE  POET  AT 

would  not  like  to  be  compared  browses  on 
his  thistles.  But  the  Master  knows  the 
movement  of  the  age  he  belongs  to ;  and  if 
he  seems  to  be  busy  with  what  looks  like 
a  small  piece  of  trivial  experimenting,  one 
may  feel  pretty  sure  that  he  knows  what  he 
is  about,  and  that  his  minute  operations  are 
looking  to  a  result  that  will  help  him  to 
wards  attaining  his  great  end  in  life,  —  an 
insight,  so  far  as  his  faculties  and  opportu 
nities  will  allow,  into  that  order  of  things 
which  he  believes  he  can  study  with  some 
prospect  of  taking  in  its  significance. 

I  became  so  anxious  to  know  what  partic 
ular  matter  he  was  busy  with,  that  I  had  to 
call  upon  him  to  satisfy  my  curiosity.  It 
was  with  a  little  trepidation  that  I  knocked 
at  his  door.  I  felt  a  good  deal  as  one  might 
have  felt  on  disturbing  an  alchemist  at  his 
work,  at  the  very  moment,  it  might  be,  when 
he  was  about  to  make  projection. 

—  Come  in !  —  said  the  Master  in  his 
grave,  massive  tones. 

I  passed  through  the  library  with  him  into 
a  little  room  evidently  devoted  to  his  exper 
iments. 

-You  have  come  just  at  the  right  mo 
ment,  —  he  said.  —  Your  eyes  are  better 
than  mine.  I  have  been  looking  at  this 


THE  BEE AKFAST- TABLE.  249 

flask,  and  I  should   like  to   have  you  look 
at  it. 

It  was  a  small  matrass,  as  one  of  the  elder 
chemists  would  have  called  it,  containing  a 
fluid,  and  hermetically  sealed.  He  held  it 
up  at  the  window  ;  perhaps  you  remember 
the  physician  holding  a  flask  to  the  light  in 
Gerard  Douw's  "  Femme  hydropique  "  ;  I 
thought  of  that  fine  figure  as  I  looked  at 
him.  —  Look  I  —  said  he,  —  is  it  clear  or 
cloudy  ? 

—  You  need   not  ask   me    that,  —  I   an 
swered.  —  It  is  very  plainly  turbid.    I  should 
think  that  some  sediment  had  been  shaken 
up  in  it.    What  is  it,  Elixir  Vitce  or  Aurum 
potabile  ? 

—  Something  that  means   more  than  al 
chemy  ever  did!      Boiled  just  three  hours, 
and  as  clear  as  a  bell  until  within  the  last 
few  days  ;  since  then  has  been  clouding  up. 

—  I  began  to  form  a  pretty  shrewd  guess 
at  the  meaning  of  all  this,  and  to  think  I 
knew  very  nearly  what  was  coming  next.     I 
was  right  in    my  conjecture.     The    Master 
broke  off  the  sealed  end  of  his  little  flask, 
took  out  a  small  portion  of  the  fluid  on  a 
glass  rod,  and  placed  it  on  a  slip  of  glass 
in  the  usual  way  for  a  microscopic  exami 
nation. 


250  THE  POET  AT 

—  One  thousand  diameters,  — he  said,  as 
he  placed  it  on  the  stage  of  the  microscope. 
—  We  shall  find  signs  of  life,  of  course.  — 
He  bent  over  the  instrument  and  looked  but 
an  instant. 

—  There    they   are  !  —  he   exclaimed,  — 
look  in. 

I  looked  in  and  saw  some  objects  not  very 
unlike  these :  — 

O   O 

The  straight  linear  bodies  were  darting 
backward  and  forward  in  every  direction. 
The  wavy  ones  were  wriggling  about  like 
eels  or  water-snakes.  The  round  ones  were 
spinning  on  their  axes  and  rolling  in  every 
direction.  All  of  them  were  in  a  state  of 
incessant  activity,  as  if  perpetually  seeking 
something  and  never  finding  it. 

They  are  tough,  the  germs  of  these  little 
bodies,  —  said  the  Master.  —  Three  hours' 
boiling  has  n't  killed  'em.  Now,  then,  let  us 
see  what  has  been  the  effect  of  six  hours' 
boiling. 

He  took  up  another  flask  just  like  the  first, 
containing  fluid  and  hermetically  sealed  in 
the  same  way. 

—  Boiled  just  three  hours  longer  than  the 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  251 

other,  —  he  said,  —  six  hours  in  all.  This  is 
the  experimentum  crucis.  Do  you  see  any 
cloudiness  in  it  ? 

—  Not  a  sign  of  it ;  it  is  as  clear  as  crys 
tal,  except  that  there  may  be  a  little  sedi 
ment  at  the  bottom. 

—  That  is  nothing.  The  liquid  is  clear. 
We  shall  find  no  signs  of  life.  —  He  put  a 
minute  drop  of  the  liquid  under  the  micro 
scope  as  before.  Nothing  stirred.  Nothing 
to  be  seen  but  a  clear  circle  of  light.  We 
looked  at  it  again  and  again,  but  with  the 
same  result. 

—  Six  hours  kill  'em  all,  according  to  this 
experiment,  —  said  the  Master.  —  Good  as 
far  as  it  goes.     One  more  negative  result. 
Do  you  know  what  would  have  happened  if 
that  liquid  had  been  clouded,  and  we  had 
found  life  in  the  sealed  flask  ?     Sir,  if  that 
liquid  had  held  life  in  it  the  Vatican  would 
have  trembled  to  hear  it,  and  there  would 
have  been  anxious  questionings  and  ominous 
whisperings  in  the  halls  of  Lambeth  palace ! 
The    accepted    cosmogonies    on   trial,    sir ! 
Traditions,  sanctities,    creeds,    ecclesiastical 
establishments,  all  shaking  to  know  whether 
my  little  sixpenny  flask  of  fluid  looks  muddy 
or  not !     I  don't  know  whether  to  laugh  or 
shudder.     The   thought   of   an   oecumenical 


252  THE  POET  AT 

council  having  its  leading  feature  dislocated 
by  my  trifling  experiment !  The  thought, 
again,  of  the  mighty  revolution  in  human 
beliefs  and  affairs  that  might  grow  out  of 
the  same  insignificant  little  phenomenon.  A 
wineglassful  of  clear  liquid  growing  muddy. 
If  we  had  found  a  wriggle,  or  a  zigzag,  or  a 
shoot  from  one  side  to  the  other,  in  this  last 
flask,  what  a  scare  there  would  have  been,  to 
be  sure,  in  the  schools  of  the  prophets !  Talk 
about  your  megatherium  and  your  megalo- 
saurus,  —  what  are  these  to  the  bacterium 
and  the  vibrio  ?  These  are  the  dreadful 
monsters  of  to-day.  If  they  show  themselves 
where  they  have  no  business,  the  little  ras 
cals  frighten  honest  folks  worse  than  ever 
people  were  frightened  by  the  Dragon  of 
Rhodes ! 

The  Master  gets  going  sometimes,  there 
is  no  denying  it,  until  his  imagination  runs 
away  with  him.  He  had  been  trying,  as  the 
reader  sees,  one  of  those  curious  experiments 
in  spontaneous  generation,  as  it  is  called, 
which  have  been  so  often  instituted  of  late 
years,  and  by  none  more  thoroughly  than  by 
that  eminent  American  student  of  nature  1 
whose  process  he  had  imitated  with  a  result 
like  his. 

1    Professor  Jeffries  Wyman. 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  253 

We  got  talking  over  these  matters  among 
us  the  next  morning  at  the  breakfast-table. 

We  must  agree  they  could  n't  stand  six 
hours'  boiling,  —  I  said. 

—  Good   for  the   Pope  of   Rome !  —  ex 
claimed  the  Master. 

—  The  Landlady  drew  back  with  a  certain 
expression  of   dismay  in    her    countenance. 
She  hoped  he  did  n't  want  the  Pope  to  make 
any  more  converts  in  this  country.    She  had 
heard  a  sermon  only  last  Sabbath,  and  the 
minister  had   made  it  out,  she  thought,  as 
plain  as  could   be,  that   the  Pope  was   the 
Man  of  Sin  and  that  the  Church  of  Rome 
was  —       Well,  there  was  very  strong  names 
applied  to  her  in  Scripture. 

What  was  good  for  the  Pope  was  good  for 
your  minister,  too,  my  dear  madam,  —  said 
the  Master.  —  Good  for  everybody  that  is 
afraid  of  what  people  call  "  science."  If  it 
should  prove  that  dead  things  come  to  life  of 
themselves,  it  would  be  awkward,  you  know, 
because  then  somebody  will  get  up  and  say 
if  one  dead  thing  made  itself  alive  another 
might,  and  so  perhaps  the  earth  peopled  it 
self  without  any  help.  Possibly  the  diffi 
culty  would  n't  be  so  great  as  many  people 
suppose.  We  might  perhaps  find  room  for 
a  Creator  after  all,  as  we  do  now,  though  we 


254  THE  POET  AT 

see  a  little  brown  seed  grow  till  it  sucks  up 
the  juices  of  half  an  acre  of  ground,  appar 
ently  all  by  its  own  inherent  power.  That 
does  not  stagger  us;  I  am  not  sure  that 
it  would  if  Mr.  Crosse's  or  Mr.  Weekes's 
acarus  should  show  himself  all  of  a  sudden, 
as  they  said  he  did,  in  certain  mineral  mix 
tures  acted  on  by  electricity. 

The  Landlady  was  off  soundings,  and 
looking  vacant  enough  by  this  time. 

The  Master  turned  to  me.  —  Don't  think 
too  much  of  the  result  of  our  one  experi 
ment.  It  means  something,  because  it  con 
firms  those  other  experiments  of  which  it  was 
a  copy  ;  but  we  must  remember  that  a  hun 
dred  negatives  don't  settle  such  a  question. 
Life  does  get  into  the  world  somehow.  You 
don't  suppose  Adam  had  the  cutaneous  un 
pleasantness  politely  called  psora,  do  you  ? 

—  Hardly,  —  I  answered.  —  He  must  have 
been  a  walking  hospital  if  he  carried  all  the 
maladies  about  him  which  have  plagued  his 
descendants. 

-  Well,  then,  how  did  the  little  beast 
which  is  peculiar  to  that  special  complaint 
intrude  himself  into  the  order  of  things? 
You  don't  suppose  there  was  a  special  act  of 
creation  for  the  express  purpose  of  bestow 
ing  that  little  wretch  on  humanity,  do  you  ? 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  255 

I  thought,  on  the  whole,  I  would  n't  an 
swer  that  question. 

—  You  and  I  are  at  work  on  the  same 
problem,  —  said  the  young  Astronomer  to 
the  Master.  —  I  have  looked  into  a  micro 
scope  now  and  then,  and  I  have  seen  that 
perpetual  dancing  about  of  minute  atoms  in 
a  fluid,  which  you  call  molecular  motion. 
Just  so,  when  I  look  through  my  telescope  I 
see  the  star-dust  whirling  about  in  the  infi 
nite  expanse  of  ether  ;  or  if  I  do  not  see  its 
motion,  I  know  that  it  is  only  on  account  of 
its  immeasurable  distance.  Matter  and  mo 
tion  everywhere ;  void  and  rest  nowhere. 
You  ask  why  your  restless  microscopic  atoms 
may  not  come  together  and  become  self-con 
scious  and  self-moving  organisms.  I  ask 
why  my  telescopic  star-dust  may  not  come  to 
gether  and  grow  and  organize  into  habitable 
worlds,  —  the  ripened  fruit  on  the  branches 
of  the  tree  Yggdrasil,  if  I  may  borrow  from 
our  friend  the  Poet's  province.  It  frightens 
people,  though,  to  hear  the  suggestion  that 
worlds  shape  themselves  from  star-mist.  It 
does  not  trouble  them  at  all  to  see  the  watery 
spheres  that  round  themselves  into  being  out 
of  the  vapors  floating  over  us  ;  they  are  noth 
ing  but  rain-drops.  But  if  a  planet  can  grow 
as  a  rain-drop  grows,  why  then  —  It  was 


256  THE  POET  AT 

a  great  comfort  to  these  timid  folk  when 
Lord  Rosse's  telescope  resolved  certain  neb 
ulae  into  star-clnsters.  Sir  John  Herschel 
would  have  told  them  that  this  made  little 
difference  in  accounting  for  the  formation  of 
worlds  by  aggregation,  but  at  any  rate  it  was 
a  comfort  to  them. 

—  These  people  have  always  been  afraid 
of  the  astronomers,  —  said  the  Master.  — 
They  were  shy,  you  know,  of  the  Copernican 
system,  for  a  long  while ;  well  they  might 
be  with  an  oubliette  waiting  for  them  if  they 
ventured  to  think  that  the  earth  moved  round 
the  sun.  Science  settled  that  point  finally 
for  them,  at  length,  and  then  it  was  all  right, 
—  when  there  was  no  use  in  disputing  the 
fact  any  longer.  By  and  by  geology  began 
turning  up  fossils  that  told  extraordinary 
stories  about  the  duration  of  life  upon  our 
planet.  What  subterfuges  were  not  used  to 
get  rid  of  their  evidence  !  Think  of  a  man 
seeing  the  fossilized  skeleton  of  an  animal 
split  out  of  a  quarry,  his  teeth  worn  down 
by  mastication,  and  the  remains  of  food  still 
visible  in  his  interior,  and,  in  order  to  get 
rid  of  a  piece  of  evidence  contrary  to  the 
traditions  he  holds  to,  seriously  maintaining 
that  this  skeleton  never  belonged  to  a  living 
creature,  but  was  created  with  just  these 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  257 

appearances ;  a  make  -  believe,  a  sham,  a 
Barnum's-mermaid  contrivance  to  amuse  its 
Creator  and  impose  upon  his  intelligent  chil 
dren  !  And  now  people  talk  about  geologi 
cal  epochs  and  hundreds  of  millions  of  years 
in  the  planet's  history  as  calmly  as  if  they 
were  discussing  the  age  of  their  deceased 
great-grandmothers.  Ten  or  a  dozen  years 
ago  people  said  Sh  !  Sh !  if  you  ventured  to 
meddle  with  any  question  supposed  to  in 
volve  a  doubt  of  the  generally  accepted  He 
brew  traditions.  To-day  such  questions  are 
recognized  as  perfectly  fair  subjects  for 
general  conversation  ;  not  in  the  basement 
story,  perhaps,  or  among  the  rank  and  file 
of  the  curbstone  congregations,  but  among 
intelligent  and  educated  persons.  You  may 
preach  about  them  in  your  pulpit,  you  may 
lecture  about  them,  you  may  talk  about  them 
with  the  first  sensible-looking  person  you  hap 
pen  to  meet,  you  may  write  magazine  articles 
about  them,  and  the  editor  need  not  expect 
to  receive  remonstrances  from  angry  sub 
scribers  and  withdrawals  of  subscriptions,  as 
he  would  have  been  sure  to  not  a  great  many 
years  ago.  Why,  you  may  go  to  a  tea-party 
where  the  clergyman's  wife  shows  her  best 
cap  and  his  daughters  display  their  shining 
ringlets,  and  you  will  hear  the  company  dis- 


258  TUE  POET  AT 

cussing  the  Darwinian  theory  of  the  origin 
of  the  human  race  as  if  it  were  as  harmless  a 
question  as  that  of  the  lineage  of  a  spinster's 
lapdog.  You  may  see  a  fine  lady  who  is  as 
particular  in  her  genuflections  as  any  Bud 
dhist  or  Mahometan  saint  in  his  manifesta 
tions  of  reverence,  who  will  talk  over  the  an 
thropoid  ape,  the  supposed  founder  of  the 
family  to  which  we  belong,  and  even  go 
back  with  you  to  the  acephalous  mollusk, 
first  cousin  to  the  clams  and  mussels,  whose 
rudimental  spine  was  the  hinted  prophecy  of 
humanity ;  all  this  time  never  dreaming,  ap 
parently,  that  what  she  takes  for  a  matter  of 
curious  speculation  involves  the  whole  future 
of  human  progress  and  destiny. 

I  can't  help  thinking  that  if  we  had  talked 
as  freelv  as  we  can  and  do  now  in  the  days 
of  the  first  boarder  at  this  table,  —  I  mean 
the  one  who  introduced  it  to  the  public,  — 
it  would  have  sounded  a  good  deal  more 
aggressively  than  it  does  now.  —  The  old 
Master  got  rather  warm  in  talking  ;  perhaps 
the  consciousness  of  having  a  number  of  lis 
teners  had  something  to  do  with  it. 

-  This  whole  business  is  an  open  ques 
tion, —  he  said, —  and  there  is  no  use  in 
saying,  u  Hush  !  don't  talk  about  such 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  259 

things  !  "  People  do  talk  about  'em  every 
where  ;  and  if  they  don't  talk  about  'em 
they  think  about  'em,  and  that  is  worse,  — 
if  there  is  anything  bad  about  such  ques 
tions,  that  is.  If  for  the  Fall  of  man,  sci 
ence  comes  to  substitute  the  RISE  of  man, 
sir,  it  means  the  utter  disintegration  of  all 
the  spiritual  pessimisms  which  have  been 
like  a  spasm  in  the  heart  and  a  cramp  in 
the  intellect  of  men  for  so  many  centuries. 
And  yet  who  dares  to  say  that  it  is  not  a 
perfectly  legitimate  and  proper  question  to 
be  discussed,  without  the  slightest  regard  to 
the  fears  or  the  threats  of  Pope  or  prelate  ? 

Sir,  1  believe,  —  the  Master  rose  from  his 
chair  as  he  spoke,  and  said  in  a  deep  and 
solemn  tone,  but  without  any  declamatory 
vehemence,  —  sir,  I  believe  that  we  are  at 
this  moment  in  what  will  be  recognized  not 
many  centuries  hence  as  one  of  the  late 
watches  in  the  night  of  the  dark  ages. 
There  is  a  twilight  ray,  beyond  question. 
We  know  something  of  the  universe,  a  very 
little,  and,  strangely  enough,  we  know  most 
of  what  is  farthest  from  us.  We  have 
weighed  the  planets  and  analyzed  the  flames 
of  the  sun  and  stars.  We  predict  their 
movements  as  if  they  were  machines  we 
ourselves  had  made  and  regulated.  We 


260  THE  POET  AT 

know  a  good  deal  about  the  earth  on  which 
we  live.  But  the  study  of  man  has  been  so 
completely  subjected  to  our  preconceived 
opinions,  that  we  have  got  to  begin  all  over 
again.  We  have  studied  anthropology 
through  theology;  we  have  now  to  begin 
the  study  of  theology  through  anthropology. 
Until  we  have  exhausted  the  human  element 
in  every  form  of  belief,  and  that  can  only 
be  done  by  what  we  may  call  comparative 
spiritual  anatomy,  we  cannot  begin  to  deal 
with  the  alleged  extra-human  elements  with 
out  blundering  into  all  imaginable  puerili 
ties.  If  you  think  for  one  moment  that 
there  is  not  a  single  religion  in  the  world 
which  does  not  come  to  us  through  the  me 
dium  of  a  preexisting  language ;  and  if  you 
remember  that  this  language  embodies  ab 
solutely  nothing  but  human  conceptions  and 
human  passions,  you  will  see  at  once  that 
every  religion  presupposes  its  own  elements 
as  already  existing  in  those  to  whom  it  is 
addressed.  I  once  went  to  a  church  in  Lon 
don  and  heard  the  famous  Edward  Irving 
preach,  and  heard  some  of  his  congregation 
speak  in  the  strange  words  characteristic  of 
their  miraculous  gift  of  tongues.  I  had  a 
respect  for  the  logical  basis  of  this  singular 
phenomenon.  I  have  always  thought  it  was 


THE  BEE AKF AST-TABLE.  261 

natural  that  any  celestial  message  should 
demand  a  language  of  its  own,  only  to  be 
understood  by  divine  illumination.  All 
human  words  tend,  of  course,  to  stop  short 
in  human  meaning.  And  the  more  I  hear 
the  most  sacred  terms  employed,  the  more 
I  am  satisfied  that  they  have  entirely  and 
radically  different  meanings  in  the  minds 
of  those  who  use  them.  Yet  they  deal  with 
them  as  if  they  were  as  definite  as  mathe 
matical  quantities  or  geometrical  figures. 
What  would  become  of  arithmetic  if  the  fig 
ure  2  meant  three  for  one  man  and  five  for 
another  and  twenty  for  a  third,  and  all  the 
other  numerals  were  in  the  same  way  vari 
able  quantities  ?  Mighty  intelligent  corre 
spondence  business  men  would  have  with 
each  other !  But  how  is  this  any  worse 
than  the  difference  of  opinion  which  led  a 
famous  clergyman  to  say  to  a  brother  theo 
logian,  "  O,  I  see,  my  dear  sir,  your  God 
is  my  Devil." 

Man  has  been  studied  proudly,  contempt 
uously,  rather,  from  the  point  of  view  sup 
posed  to  be  authoritatively  settled.  The 
self  -  sufficiency  of  egotistic  natures  was 
never  more  fully  shown  than  in  the  exposi 
tions  of  the  worthlessness  and  wretchedness 
of  their  fellow-creatures  given  by  the  dog- 


262  THE  POET  AT 

matists  who  have  "  gone  back,"  as  the  vul 
gar  phrase  is,  on  their  race,  their  own  flesh 
and  blood.  Did  you  ever  read  what  Mr. 
Bancroft  says  about  Calvin  in  his  article  on 
Jonathan  Edwards,  —  and  mighty  well  said 
it  is  too.  in  my  judgment  ?  Let  me  remind 
you  of  it,  whether  you  have  read  it  or  not. 
"  Setting  himself  up  over  against  the  privi 
leged  classes,  he,  with  a  loftier  pride  than 
theirs,  revealed  the  power  of  a  yet  higher 
order  of  nobility,  not  of  a  registered  ances 
try  of  fifteen  generations,  but  one  absolutely 
spotless  in  its  escutcheon,  preordained  in 
the  council  chamber  of  eternity."  I  think 
you  '11  find  I  have  got  that  sentence  right, 
word  for  word,  and  there 's  a  great  deal 
more  in  it  than  many  good  folks  who  call 
themselves  after  the  reformer  seem  to  be 
aware  of.  The  Pope  put  his  foot  on  the 
neck  of  kings,  but  Calvin  and  his  cohort 
crushed  the  whole  human  race  under  their 
heels  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  of  Hosts. 
Now,  you  see,  the  point  that  people  don't 
understand  is  the  absolute  and  utter  humil 
ity  of  science,  in  opposition  to  this  doctrinal 
self-sufficiency.  I  don't  doubt  this  may 
sound  a  little  paradoxical  at  first,  but  I 
think  you  will  find  it  is  all  right.  You  re 
member  the  courtier  and  the  monarch,  — 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  263 

Louis  the  Fourteenth,  was  n't  it  ?  -  -  never 
mind,  give  the  poor  fellows  that  live  by  set 
ting  you  right  a  chance.  "  What  o'clock  is 
it?  "  says  the  king.  "Just  whatever  o'clock 
your  Majesty  pleases,"  says  the  courtier.  I 
venture  to  say  the  monarch  was  a  great  deal 
more  humble  than  the  follower,  who  pre 
tended  that  his  master  was  superior  to  such 
trifling  facts  as  the  revolution  of  the  planet. 
It  was  the  same  thing,  you  remember,  with 
King  Canute  and  the  tide  on  the  seashore. 
The  king  accepted  the  scientific  fact  of  the 
tide's  rising.  The  loyal  hangers-on,  who 
believed  in  divine  right,  were  too  proud  of 
the  company  they  found  themselves  in  to 
make  any  such  humiliating  admission.  But 
there  are  people,  and  plenty  of  them,  to-day, 
who  will  dispute  facts  just  as  clear  to  those 
who  have  taken  the  pains  to  learn  what  is 
known  about  them,  as  that  of  the  tide's  ris 
ing.  They  don't  like  to  admit  these  facts, 
because  they  throw  doubt  upon  some  of 
their  cherished  opinions.  We  are  getting 
on  towards  the  last  part  of  this  nineteenth 
century.  Wrhat  we  have  gained  is  not  so 
much  in  positive  knowledge,  though  that  is 
a  good  deal,  as  it  is  in  the  freedom  of  dis 
cussion  of  every  subject  that  comes  within 
the  range  of  observation  and  inference. 


264  THE  POET  AT 

How  long  is  it  since  Mrs.  Piozzi  wrote,  — 
"  Let  me  hope  that  you  will  not  pursue  geol 
ogy  till  it  leads  you  into  doubts  destructive 
of  all  comfort  in  this  world  and  all  happiness 
in  the  next  "  ? 

The  Master  paused  and  I  remained  silent, 
for  I  was  thinking  things  I  could  not  say. 

—  It  is  well  always  to  have  a  woman  near 
by  when  one  is  talking  on  this  class  of  sub 
jects.  Whether  there  will  be  three  or  four 
women  to  one  man  in  heaven  is  a  question 
which  I  must  leave  to  those  who  talk  as  if 
they  knew  all  about  the  future  condition  of 
the  race  to  answer.  But  very  certainly  there 
is  much  more  of  hearty  faith,  much  more  of 
spiritual  life,  among  women  than  among 
men,  in  this  world.  They  need  faith  to  sup 
port  them  more  than  men  do,  for  they  have 
a  great  deal  less  to  call  them  out  of  them 
selves,  and  it  comes  easier  to  them,  for  their 
habitual  state  of  dependence  teaches  them  to 
trust  in  others.  When  they  become  voters, 
if  they  ever  do,  it  may  be  feared  that  the 
pews  will  lose  what  the  ward-rooms  gain. 
Relax  a  woman's  hold  on  man,  and  her  knee- 
joints  will  soon  begin  to  stiffen.  Self-asser 
tion  brings  out  many  fine  qualities,  but  it 
does  not  promote  devotional  habits. 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  265 

I  remember  some  such  thoughts  as  this 
were  passing  through  my  mind  while  the 
Master  was  talking.  I  noticed  that  the 
Lady  was  listening  to  the  conversation  with 
a  look  of  more  than  usual  interest.  We 
men  have  the  talk  mostly  to  ourselves  at  this 
table ;  the  Master,  as  you  have  found  out,  is 
fond  of  monologues,  and  I  myself  —  well,  I 
suppose  I  must  own  to  a  certain  love  for  the 
reverberated  music  of  my  own  accents  ;  at 
any  rate,  the  Master  and  I  do  most  of  the 
talking.  But  others  help  us  do  the  listening. 
I  think  I  can  show  that  they  listen  to  some 
purpose.  I  am  going  to  surprise  my  reader 
with  a  letter  which  I  received  very  shortly 
after  the  conversation  took  place  which  I 
have  just  reported.  It  is  of  course  by  a 
special  license,  such  as  belongs  to  the  su 
preme  prerogative  of  an  author,  that  I  am 
enabled  to  present  it  to  him.  He  need  ask 
no  questions  :  it  is  not  his  affair  how  I  ob 
tained  the  right  to  give  publicity  to  a  private 
communication.  I  have  become  somewhat 
more  intimately  acquainted  with  the  writer 
of  it  than  in  the  earlier  period  of  my  connec 
tion  with  this  establishment,  and  I  think  I 
may  say  have  gained  her  confidence  to  a  very 
considerable  degree. 


266  THE  POET  AT 

MY  DEAR  SIR  :  The  conversations  I  have 
had  with  you,  limited  as  they  have  been, 
have  convinced  me  that  I  am  quite  safe  in 
addressing  you  with  freedom  on  a  subject 
which  interests  me,  and  others  more  than 
myself.  We  at  our  end  of  the  table  have 
been  listening,  more  or  less  intelligently,  to 
the  discussions  going  on  between  two  or 
three  of  you  gentlemen  on  matters  of  solemn 
import  to  us  all.  This  is  nothing  very  new 
to  me.  I  have  been  used,  from  an  early 
period  of  my  life,  to  hear  the  discussion  of 
grave  questions,  both  in  politics  and  religion. 
I  have  seen  gentlemen  at  my  father's  table 
get  as  warm  over  a  theological  point  of  dis 
pute  as  in  talking  over  their  political  differ 
ences.  I  rather  think  it  has  always  been 
very  much  so,  in  bad  as  well  as  in  good  com 
pany  ;  for  you  remember  how  Milton's  fallen 
angels  amused  themselves  with  disputing  on 
"  providence,  foreknowledge,  will,  and  fate," 
and  it  was  the  same  thing  in  that  club  Gold 
smith  writes  so  pleasantly  about.  Indeed, 
why  should  not  people  very  often  come,  in 
the  course  of  conversation,  to  the  one  sub 
ject  which  lies  beneath  all  else  about  which 
bur  thoughts  are  occupied?  And  what 
more  natural  than  that  one  should  be  inquir 
ing  about  what  another  has  accepted  and 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  267 

ceased  to  have  any  doubts  concerning  ?  It 
seems  to  me  all  right  that  at  the  proper  time, 
in  the  proper  place,  those  who  are  less  easily 
convinced  than  their  neighbors  should  have 
the  fullest  liberty  of  calling  to  account  all 
the  opinions  which  others  receive  without 
question.  Somebody  must  stand  sentry  at 
the  outposts  of  belief,  and  it  is  a  sentry's 
business,  I  believe,  to  challenge  every  one 
who  comes  near  him,  friend  or  foe. 

I  want  you  to  understand  fully  that  I  am 
not  one  of  those  poor  nervous  creatures  who 
are  frightened  out  of  their  wits  when  any 
question  is  started  that  implies  the  disturb 
ance  of  their  old  beliefs.  I  manage  to  see 
some  of  the  periodicals,  and  now  and  then 
dip  a  little  way  into  a  new  book  which  deals 
with  these  curious  questions  you  were  talk 
ing  about,  and  others  like  them.  You  know 
they  find  their  way  almost  everywhere. 
They  do  not  worry  me  in  the  least.  When 
I  was  a  little  girl,  they  used  to  say  that  if 
you  put  a  horsehair  into  a  tub  of  water  it 
would  turn  into  a  snake  in  the  course  of  a 
few  days.  That  did  not  seem  to  me  so  very 
much  stranger  than  it  was  that  an  egg  should 
turn  into  a  chicken.  What  can  I  say  to 
that?  Only  that  it  is  the  Lord's  doings, 
and  marvellous  in  my  eyes ;  and  if  our  phil- 


268  THE  POET  AT 

osopliical  friend  should  find  some  little  live 
creatures,  or  what  seem  to  be  live  creatures, 
in  any  of  his  messes,  I  should  say  as  much, 
and  no  more.  You  do  not  think  I  would 
shut  up  my  Bible  and  Prayer-Book  because 
there  is  one  more  thing  I  do  not  understand 
in  a  world  where  I  understand  so  very  little 
of  all  the  wonders  that  surround  me  ? 

It  may  be  very  wrong  to  pay  any  atten 
tion  to  those  speculations  about  the  origin 
of  mankind  which  seem  to  conflict  with  the 
Sacred  Record.  But  perhaps  there  is  some 
way  of  reconciling  them,  as  there  is  of  mak 
ing  the  seven  days  of  creation  harmonize 
with  modern  geology.  At  least,  these  spec 
ulations  are  curious  enough  in  themselves ; 
and  I  have  seen  so  many  good  and  handsome 
children  come  of  parents  who  were  anything 
but  virtuous  and  comely,  that  I  can  believe 
in  almost  any  amount  of  improvement  taking 
place  in  a  tribe  of  living  beings,  if  time  and 
opportunity  favor  it.  I  have  read  in  books 
of  natural  history  that  dogs  came  originally 
from  wolves.  When  I  remember  my  little 
Flora,  who,  as  I  used  to  think,  could  do 
everything  but  talk,  it  does  not  seem  to  me 
that  she  was  much  nearer  her  savage  ances 
tors  than  some  of  the  horrid  cannibal  wretches 
are  to  their  neighbors  the  great  apes. 


THE  BBEAKFAST-TABLE.  269 

You  see  that  I  am  tolerably  liberal  in  my 
habit  of  looking  at  all  these  questions.  We 
women  drift  along  with  the  current  of  the 
times,  listening,  in  our  quiet  way,  to  the  dis 
cussions  going  on  round  us  in  books  and  in 
conversation,  and  shift  the  phrases  in  which 
we  think  and  talk  with  something  of  the  same 
ease  as  that  with  which  we  change  our  style 
of  dress  from  year  to  year.  I  doubt  if  you 
of  the  other  sex  know  what  an  effect  this 
habit  of  accommodating  our  tastes  to  chang 
ing  standards  has  upon  us.  Nothing  is  fixed 
in  them,  as  you  know;  the  very  law  of 
fashion  is  change.  I  suspect  we  learn  from 
our  dressmakers  to  shift  the  costume  of  our 
minds,  and  slip  on  the  new  fashions  of  think 
ing  all  the  more  easily  because  we  have  been 
accustomed  to  new  styles  of  dressing  every 
season. 

It  frightens  me  to  see  how  much  I  have 
written  without  having  yet  said  a  word  of 
what  I  began  this  letter  on  purpose  to  say. 
I  have  taken  so  much  space  in  "  defining  my 
position,"  to  borrow  the  politicians'  phrase, 
that  I  begin  to  fear  you  will  be  out  of  pa 
tience  before  you  come  to  the  part  of  my  let 
ter  I  care  most  about  your  reading. 

What  I  want  to  say  is  this.     When  these 


270  THE  POET  AT 

matters  are  talked  about  before  persons  of 
different  ages  and  various  shades  of  intelli 
gence,  I  think  one  ought  to  be  very  careful 
that  his  use  of  language  does  not  injure  the 
sensibilities,  perhaps  blunt  the  reverential 
feelings,  of  those  who  are  listening  to  him. 
You  of  the  sterner  sex  say  that  we  women 
have  intuitions,  but  not  logic,  as  our  birth 
right.  I  shall  not  commit  my  sex  by  con 
ceding  this  to  be  true  as  a  whole,  but  I  will 
accept  the  first  half  of  it,  and  I  will  go  so  far 
as  to  say  that  we  do  not  always  care  to  fol 
low  out  a  train  of  thought  until  it  ends  in  a 
blind  cul  de  sac,  as  some  of  what  are  called 
the  logical  people  are  fond  of  doing. 

Now  I  want  to  remind  you  that  religion  is 
not  a  matter  of  intellectual  luxury  to  those 
of  us  who  are  interested  in  it,  but  something 
very  different.  It  is  our  life,  and  more  than 
our  life  ;  for  that  is  measured  by  pulse-beats, 
but  our  religious  consciousness  partakes  of 
the  Infinite,  towards  which  it  is  constantly 
yearning.  It  is  very  possible  that  a  hundred 
or  five  hundred  years  from  now  the  forms  of 
religious  belief  may  be  so  altered  that  we 
should  hardly  know  them.  But  the  sense  of 
dependence  on  Divine  influence,  and  the  need 
of  communion  with  the  unseen  and  eternal, 
will  be  then  just  what  they  are  now.  It  is 


THE  BEEAKFAST-TABLE.  271 

not  the  geologist's  hammer,  or  the  astron 
omer's  telescope,  or  the  naturalist's  micro 
scope,  that  is  going  to  take  away  the  need 
of  the  human  soul  for  that  Rock  to  rest  upon 
which  is  higher  than  itself,  that  Star  which 
never  sets,  that  all-pervading  Presence  which 
gives  life  to  all  the  least  moving  atoms  of 
the  immeasurable  universe. 

I  have  no  fears  for  myself,  and  listen  very 
quietly  to  all  your  debates.  I  go  from  your 
philosophical  discussions  to  the  reading  of 
Jeremy  Taylor's  "  Rule  and  Exercises  of 
Holy  Dying "  without  feeling  that  I  have 
unfitted  myself  in  the  least  degree  for  its 
solemn  reflections.  And,  as  I  have  mentioned 
his  name,  I  cannot  help  saying  that  I  do  not 
believe  that  good  man  himself  would  have 
ever  shown  the  bitterness  to  those  who  seem 
to  be  at  variance  with  the  received  doctrines, 
which  one  may  see  in  some  of  the  newspa 
pers  that  call  themselves  "  religious."  I  have 
kept  a  few  old  books  from  my  honored  fa 
ther's  library,  and  among  them  is  another  of 
his  which  I  always  thought  had  more  true 
Christianity  in  its  title  than  there  is  in  a 
good  many  whole  volumes.  I  am  going  to 
take  the  book  down,  or  up,  —  for  it  is  not  a 
little  one,  —  and  write  out  the  title,  which,  I 
dare  say,  you  remember,  and  very  likely  you 


272  THE  POET  AT 

have  the  book.  "  Discourse  of  the  Liberty 
of  Prophesying,  showing  the  Unreasonable 
ness  of  prescribing  to  other  Men's  Faith, 
and  the  Iniquity  of  persecuting  Different 
Opinions." 

Now,  my  dear  sir,  I  am  sure  you  believe 
that  I  want  to  be  liberal  and  reasonable,  and 
not  to  act  like  those  weak  alarmists  who, 
whenever  the  silly  sheep  begin  to  skip  as  if 
something  was  after  them,  and  huddle  to 
gether  in  their  fright,  are  sure  there  must 
be  a  bear  or  a  lion  coming  to  eat  them  up. 
But  for  all  that,  I  want  to  beg  you  to  handle 
some  of  these  points,  which  are  so  involved 
in  the  creed  of  a  good  many  well-intentioned 
persons  that  you  cannot  separate  them  from 
it  without  picking  their  whole  belief  to  pieces, 
with  more  thought  for  them  than  you  might 
think  at  first  they  were  entitled  to.  I  have 
no  doubt  you  gentlemen  are  as  wise  as  ser 
pents,  and  I  want  you  to  be  as  harmless  as 
doves. 

The  Young  Girl  who  sits  by  me  has,  I 
know,  strong  religious  instincts.  Instead  of 
setting  her  out  to  ask  all  sorts  of  questions, 
I  would  rather,  if  I  had  my  way,  encourage 
her  to  form  a  habit  of  attending  to  religious 
duties,  and  make  the  most  of  the  simple 
faith  in  which  she  was  bred.  I  think  there 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  273 

are  a  good  many  questions  young  persons 
may  safely  postpone  to  a  more  convenient 
season  ;  and  as  this  young  creature  is  over 
worked,  I  hate  to  have  her  excited  by  the 
fever  of  doubt  which  it  cannot  be  denied  is 
largely  prevailing  in  our  time. 

I  know  you  must  have  looked  on  our  other 
young  friend,  who  has  devoted  himself  to 
the  sublimest  of  the  sciences,  with  as  much 
interest  as  I  do.  When  I  was  a  little  girl  I 
used  to  write  out  a  line  of  Young's  as  a  copy 
in  my  writing-book, 

"  An  undevout  astronomer  is  mad  "  ; 

but  I  do  not  now  feel  quite  so  sure  that  the 
contemplation  of  all  the  multitude  of  remote 
worlds  does  not  tend  to  weaken  the  idea  of  a 
personal  Deity.  It  is  not  so  much  that  neb 
ular  theory  which  worries  me,  when  I  think 
about  this  subject,  as  a  kind  of  bewilder 
ment  when  I  try  to  conceive  of  a  conscious 
ness  filling  all  those  frightful  blanks  of  space 
they  talk  about.  I  sometimes  doubt  whether 
that  young  man  worships  anything  but  the 
stars.  They  tell  me  that  many  young  stu 
dents  of  science  like  him  never  see  the  inside 
of  a  church.  I  cannot  help  wishing  they 
did.  It  humanizes  people,  quite  apart  from 
any  higher  influence  it  exerts  upon  them. 


274  THE  POET  AT 

One  reason,  perhaps,  why  they  do  not  care 
to  go  to  places  of  worship  is  that  they  are 
liable  to  hear  the  questions  they  know  some 
thing  about  handled  in  sermons  by  those 
who  know  very  much  less  about  them.  And 
so  they  lose  a  great  deal.  Almost  every  hu 
man  being,  however  vague  his  notions  of  the 
Power  addressed,  is  capable  of  being  lifted 
and  solemnized  by  the  exercise  of  public 
prayer.  When  I  was  a  young  girl  we  trav 
elled  in  Europe,  and  I  visited  Ferney  with 
my  parents  ;  and  I  remember  we  all  stopped 
before  a  chapel,  and  I  read  upon  its  front,  — 
I  knew  Latin  enough  to  understand  it,  I  am 
pleased  to  say,  —  Deo  erexit  Voltaire.  I 
never  forgot  it ;  and  knowing  what  a  sad 
scoffer  he  was  at  most  sacred  things,  I  could 
not  but  be  impressed  with  the  fact  that  even 
he  was  not  satisfied  with  himself,  until  he 
had  shown  his  devotion  in  a  public  and  last 
ing  form. 

We  all  want  religion  sooner  or  later.  I 
am  afraid  there  are  some  who  have  no  nat 
ural  turn  for  it,  as  there  are  persons  without 
an  ear  for  music,  to  which,  if  I  remember 
right,  I  heard  one  of  you  comparing  what 
you  called  religious  genius.  But  sorrow  and 
misery  bring  even  these  to  know  what  it 
means,  in  a  great  many  instances.  May  I 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  275 

not  say  to  you,  my  friend,  that  I  am  one  who 
has  learned  the  secret  of  the  inner  life  by 
the  discipline  of  trials  in  the  life  of  outward 
circumstance  ?  I  can  remember  the  time 
when  I  thought  more  about  the  shade  of 
color  in  a  ribbon,  whether  it  matched  my 
complexion  or  not,  than  I  did  about  my  spir 
itual  interests  in  this  world  or  the  next.  It 
was  needful  that  I  should  learn  the  meaning 
of  that  text,  "Whom  the  Lord  loveth  he 
chasteneth." 

Since  I  have  been  taught  in  the  school  of 
trial  I  have  felt,  as  I  never  could  before, 
how  precious  an  inheritance  is  the  small 
est  patrimony  of  faith.  When  everything 
seemed  gone  from  me,  I  found  I  had  still 
one  possession.  The  bruised  reed  that  I  had 
never  leaned  on  became  my  staff.  The 
smoking  flax  which  had  been  a  worry  to  my 
eyes  burst  into  flame,  and  I  lighted  the  taper 
at  it  which  has  since  guided  all  my  footsteps. 
And  I  am  but  one  of  the  thousands  who 
have  had  the  same  experience.  They  have 
been  through  the  depths  of  affliction,  and 
know  the  needs  of  the  human  soul.  It  will 
find  its  God  in  the  unseen,  —  Father,  Sa 
viour,  Divine  Spirit,  Virgin  Mother,  —  it 
must  and  will  breathe  its  longings  and  its 
griefs  into  the  heart  of  a  Being  capable  of 


276  THE  POET  AT 

understanding  all  its  necessities  and  sympa 
thizing  with  all  its  woes. 

I  am  jealous,  yes,  I  own  I  am  jealous  of 
any  word,  spoken  or  written,  that  would 
tend  to  impair  that  birthright  of  reverence 
which  becomes  for  so  many  in  after  years 
the  basis  of  a  deeper  religious  sentiment. 
And  yet,  as  I  have  said,  I  cannot  and  will 
not  shut  my  eyes  to  the  problems  which  may 
seriously  affect  our  modes  of  conceiving  the 
eternal  truths  on  which,  and  by  which,  our 
souls  must  live.  What  a  fearful  time  is  this 
into  which  we  poor  sensitive  and  timid  crea 
tures  are  born  !  I  suppose  the  life  of  every 
century  has  more  or  less  special  resemblance 
to  that  of  some  particular  Apostle.  I  can 
not  help  thinking  this  century  has  Thomas 
for  its  model.  How  do  you  suppose  the 
other  Apostles  felt  when  that  experimental 
philosopher  explored  the  wounds  of  the  Be 
ing  who  to  them  was  divine  with  his  inquisi 
tive  forefinger  ?  In  our  time  that  finger  has 
multiplied  itself  into  ten  thousand  thousand 
implements  of  research,  challenging  all  mys 
teries,  weighing  the  world  as  in  a  balance, 
and  sifting  through  its  prisms  and  spectro 
scopes  the  light  that  comes  from  the  throne 
of  the  Eternal. 

Pity  us,  dear  Lord,  pity  us  !     The  peace 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  277 

in  believing  which  belonged  to  other  ages  is 
not  for  us.  Again  Thy  wounds  are  opened 
that  we  may  know  whether  it  is  the  blood  of 
one  like  ourselves  which  flows  from  them,  or 
whether  it  is  a  Divinity  that  is  bleeding  for 
His  creatures.  Wilt  Thou  not  take  the 
doubt  of  Thy  children  whom  the  time  com 
mands  to  try  all  tilings  in  the  place  of  the 
unquestioning  faith  of  earlier  and  simpler- 
hearted  generations  ?  We  too  have  need  of 
Thee.  Thy  martyrs  in  other  ages  were  cast 
into  the  flames,  but  110  fire  could  touch  their 
immortal  and  indestructible  faith.  We  sit 
in  safety  and  in  peace,  so  far  as  these  poor 
bodies  are  concerned  ;  but  our  cherished  be 
liefs,  the  hopes,  the  trust  that  stayed  the 
hearts  of  those  we  loved  who  have  gone  be 
fore  as,  are  cast  into  the  fiery  furnace  of  an 
age  which  is  fast  turning  to  dross  the  cer 
tainties  and  the  sanctities  once  prized  as  our 
most  precious  inheritance. 

You  will  understand  me,  my  dear  sir,  and 
all  my  solicitudes  and  apprehensions.  Had 
I  never  been  assailed  by  the  questions  that 
meet  all  thinking  persons  in  our  time,  I 
might  not  have  thought  so  anxiously  about 
the  risk  of  perplexing  others.  I  know  as 
well  as  you  must  that  there  are  many  articles 
of  belief  clinging  to  the  skirts  of  our  time 


278  THE  POET  AT 

which  are  the  bequests  of  the  ages  of  igno 
rance  that  God  winked  at.  But  for  all  that 
I  would  train  a  child  in  the  nurture  and  ad 
monition  of  the  Lord,  according  to  the  sim 
plest  and  best  creed  I  could  disentangle  from 
those  barbarisms,  and  I  would  in  every  way 
try  to  keep  up  in  young  persons  that  stan 
dard  of  reverence  for  all  sacred  subjects 
which  may,  without  any  violent  transition, 
grow  and  ripen  into  the  devotion  of  later 
years. 

Believe  me, 

Very  sincerely  yours, 


I  have  thought  a  good  deal  about  this  let 
ter  and  the  writer  of  it  lately.  She  seemed 
at  first  removed  to  a  distance  from  all  of  us, 
but  here  I  find  myself  in  somewhat  near 
relations  with  her.  What  has  surprised  me 
more  than  that,  however,  is  to  find  that  she 
is  becoming  so  much  acquainted  with  the 
Kegister  of  Deeds.  Of  all  persons  in  the 
world,  I  should  least  have  thought  of  him  as 
like  to  be  interested  in  her,  and  still  less, 
if  possible,  of  her  fancying  him.  I  can  only 
say  they  have  been  in  pretty  close  conversa 
tion  several  times  of  late,  and,  if  I  dared  to 
think  it  of  so  very  calm  and  dignified  a  per- 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  279 

sonage,  I  should  say  that  her  color  was  a 
little  heightened  after  one  or  more  of  these 
'nterviews.  No  !  that  would  be  too  absurd  ! 
;3ut  I  begin  to  think  nothing  is  absurd  in  the 
matter  of  the  relations  of  the  two  sexes  ; 
and  if  this  high-bred  woman  fancies  the 
attentions  of  a  piece  of  human  machinery 
like  this  elderly  individual,  it  is  none  of  my 
business. 

I  have  been  at  work  on  some  more  of  the 
Young  Astronomer's  lines.  I  find  less  oc 
casion  for  meddling  with  them  as  he  grows 
more  used  to  versification.  I  think  I  could 
analyze  the  processes  going  on  in  his  mind, 
and  the  conflict  of  instincts  which  he  cannot 
in  the  nature  of  things  understand.  But  it 
is  as  well  to  give  the  reader  a  chance  to  find 
out  for  himself  what  is  going  on  in  the 
young  man's  heart  and  intellect. 

WIND-CLOUDS  AND   STAR-DRIFTS, 
in. 

The  snows  that  glittered  on  the  disk  of  Mars 

Have  melted,  and  the  planet's  fiery  orb 

Rolls  in  the  crimson  summer  of  its  year  ; 

But  what  to  me  the  summer  or  the  snow 

Of  worlds  that  throb  with  life  in  forms  unknown, 


280  THE  POET  AT 

If  life  indeed  be  theirs ;  I  heed  not  these. 

My  heart  is  simply  human  ;  all  my  care 

For  them  whose  dust  is  fashioned  like  mine  own , 

These  ache  with  cold  and  hunger,  live  in  pain, 

And  shake  with  fear  of  worlds  more  full  of  woe ; 

There  may  be  others  worthier  of  my  love, 

But  such  I  know  not  save  through  these  I  know. 

There  are  two  veils  of  language,  hid  beneath 
Whose  sheltering  folds,  we  dare  to  be  ourselves  ; 
And  not  that  other  self  which  nods  and  smiles 
And  babbles  in  our  name  ;  the  one  is  Prayer, 
Lending  its  licensed  freedom  to  the  tongue 
That  tells  our  sorrows  and  our  sins  to  Heaven  ; 
The  other,  Verse,  that  throws  its  spangled  web 
Around  our  naked  speech  and  makes  it  bold. 
I,  whose  best  prayer  is  silence  ;  sitting  dumb 
In  the  great  temple  where  I  nightly  serve 
Him  who  is  throned  in  light,  have  dared  to  claim 
The  poet's  franchise,  though  I  may  not  hope 
To  wear  his  garland ;  hear  me  while  I  tell 
My  story  in  such  form  as  poets  use, 
But  breathed  in  fitful  whispers,  as  the  wind 
Sighs  and  then  slumbers,  wakes  and  sighs  again. 

Thou  Vision,  floating  in  the  breathless  air 
Between  me  and  the  fairest  of  the  stars, 
I  tell  my  lonely  thoughts  as  unto  thee. 
Look  not  for  marvels  of  the  scholar's  pen 
In  my  rude  measure  ;  I  can  only  show 
A  slender-margined,  unillumined  page, 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  281 

And  trust  its  meaning  to  the  flattering  eye 
That  reads  it  in  the  gracious  light  of  love. 
Ah,  wouldst  thou  clothe  thyself  in  breathing 

shape 

And  nestle  at  my  side,  my  voice  should  lend 
Whate'er  my  verse  may  lack  of  tender  rhythm 
To  make  thee  listen. 

I  have  stood  entranced 

When,  with  her  fingers  wandering  o'er  the  keys, 
The  white  enchantress  with  the  golden  hair 
Breathed    all    her   soul  through    some  unvalued 

rhyme ; 

Some  flower  of  song  that  long  had  lost  its  bloom  ; 
Lo  !  its  dead  summer  kindled  as  she  sang ! 
The  sweet  contralto,  like  the  ringdove's  coo, 
Thrilled  it  with  brooding,  fond,  caressing  tones. 
And  the  pale  minstrel's  passion  lived  again, 
Tearful  and  trembling  as  a  dewy  rose 
The  wind  has  shaken  till  it  fills  the  air 
With  light  and  fragrance.     Such  the  wondrous 

charm 

A  song  can  borrow  when  the  bosom  throbs 
That  lends  it  breath. 

So  from  the  poet's  lips 

His  verse  sounds  doubly  sweet,  for  none  like  him 
Feels  every  cadence  of  its  wave-like  flow ; 
He  lives  the  passion  over,  while  he  reads, 
That  shook  him  as  he  sang  his  lofty  strain, 
And  pours  his  life  through  each  resounding  line, 
As  ocean,  when  the  stormy  winds  are  hushed, 
Still  rolls  and  thunders  through  his  billowy  caves. 


282  THE  POET  AT 

Let  me  retrace  the  record  of  the  years 
That  made  me  what  I  am.     A  man  most  wise, 
But  overworn  with  toil  and  bent  with  age, 
Sought  me  to  be  his  scholar,  —  me,  run  wild 
From  books  and  teachers,  —  kindled  in  my  soul 
The  love  of  knowledge ;  led  me  to  his  tower, 
Showed  me  the  wonders  of  the  midnight  realm 
His  hollow  sceptre  ruled,  or  seefried  to  rule, 
Taught  me  the  mighty  secrets  of  the  spheres, 
Trained   me  to  find    the  glimmering  specks    of 

light 

Beyond  the  unaided  sense,  and  on  my  chart 
To  string  them  one  by  one,  in  order  due, 
As  on  a  rosary  a  saint  his  beads. 
I  was  his  only  scholar ;  I  became 
The  echo  to  his  thought ;  whate'er  he  knew 
Was  mine  for  asking  ;   so  from  year  to  year 
We  wrought  together,  till  there  came  a  time 
When  I,  the  learner,  was  the  master  half 
Of  the  twinned  being  in  the  dome-crowned  tower. 

Minds  roll  in  paths  like  planets  ;  they  revolve 
This  in  a  larger,  that  a  narrower  ring, 
But  round  they  come  at  last  to  that  same  phase, 
That  self-same  light  and  shade  they  showed  be 
fore. 

I  learned  his  annual  and  his  monthly  tale, 
His  weekly  axiom  and  his  daily  phrase, 
I  felt  them  coming  in  the  laden  air, 
And  watched  them  laboring  up  to  vocal  breath, 
Even  as  the  first-born  at  his  father's  board 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  283 

Knows  ere  he  speaks  the  too  familiar  jest 
Is  on  its  way,  by  some  mysterious  sign 
Forewarned,  the  click  before  the  striking  bell. 

He  shrivelled  as  I  spread  my  growing  leaves, 
Till   trust    and    reverence    changed    to    pitying 

care ; 

He  lived  for  me  in  what  he  once  had  been, 
But  I  for  him,  a  shadow,  a  defence, 
The  guardian  of  his  fame,  his  guide,  his  staff, 
Leaned  on  so  long  he  fell  if  left  alone. 
I  was  his  eye,  his  ear,  his  cunning  hand, 
Love  was  my  spur  and  longing  after  fame, 
But  his  the  goading  thorn  of  sleepless  age 
That  sees    its   shortening    span,   its    lengthening 

shades, 

That  clutches  what  it  may  with  eager  grasp, 
And  drops  at  last  with  empty,  outstretched  hands. 

All  this  he  dreamed  not.     He  would  sit  him 

down 

Thinking  to  work  his  problems  as  of  old, 
And  find  the  star  he  thought  so  plain  a  blur, 
The  columned  figures  labyrinthine  wilds 
Without  my  comment,  blind  and  senseless  scrawls 
That  vexed    him   with    their  riddles ;    he  would 

strive 

And  struggle  for  a  while,  and  then  his  eye 
Would  lose  its  light,  and  over  all  his  mind 
The  cold  gray  mist  would  settle  ;  and  erelong 
The  darkness  fell,  and  I  was  left  alone. 


284  THE  POET  AT 

Alone !  no  climber  of  an  Alpine  cliff, 
No  Arctic  venturer  on  the  waveless  sea, 
Feels  the  dread  stillness  round  him  as  it  chills 
The  heart  of  him  who  leaves  the  slumbering  earth 
To  watch  the  silent  worlds  that  crowd  the  sky. 

Alone  !     And  as  the  shepherd  leaves  his  flock 
To  feed  upon  the  hillside,  he  meanwhile 
Finds  converse  in  the  warblings  of  the  pipe 
Himself  has  fashioned  for  his  vacant  hour, 
So  have  I  grown  companion  to  myself, 
And  to  the  wandering  spirits  of  the  air 
That  smile  and  whisper  round  us  in  our  dreams. 
Thus  have  I  learned  to  search  if  I  may  know 
The  whence  and  why  of  all  beneath  the  stars 
And  all  beyond  them,  and  to  weigh  my  life 
As  in  a  balance,  —  poising  good  and  ill 
Against  each  other,  —  asking  of  the  Power 
That  flung  me  forth  among  the  whirling  worlds, 
If  I  am  heir  to  any  inborn  right, 
Or  only  as  an  atom  of  the  dust 
That  every  wind  may  blow  where'er  it  will. 

I  am  not  humble ;  I  was  shown  my  place, 
Clad  in  such  robes  as  Nature  had  at  hand  ; 
Took  what  she  gave,  not  chose  ;  I  know  no  shame, 
No  fear  for  being  simply  what  I  am. 
I  am  not  proud,  I  hold  my  every  breath 
At  Nature's  mercy.     I  am  as  a  babe 
Borne  in  a  giant's  arms,  he  knows  not  where ; 
Each  several  heart-beat,  counted  like  the  coin 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  285 

A  miser  reckons,  is  a  special  gift 

As  from  an  unseen  hand ;  if  that  withhold 

Its  bounty  for  a  moment,  I  am  left 

A  clod  upon  the  earth  to  which  I  fall. 

Something  I  find  in  me  that  well  might  claim 

The  love  of  beings  in  a  sphere  above 

This  doubtful  twilight  world  of  right  and  wrong ; 

Something  that  shows  me  of  the  self-same  clay 

That  creeps  or  swims  or  flies  in  humblest  form. 

Had  I  been  asked,  before  I  left  my  bed 

Of  shapeless  dust,  what  clothing  I  would  wear, 

I  would  have  said,  More  angel  and  less  worm  ; 

But  for  their  sake  who  are  even  such  as  I, 

Of  the  same  mingled  blood,  I  would  not  choose 

To  hate  that  meaner  portion  of  myself 

Which  makes  me  brother  to  the  least  of  men. 

I  dare  not  be  a  coward  with  my  lips 

Who  dare  to  question  all  things  in  my  soul ; 

Some  men  may  find  their  wisdom  on  their  knees, 

Some  prone  and  grovelling  in  the  dust  like  slaves  ; 

Let  the  meek  glow-worm  glisten  in  the  dew  ; 

I  ask  to  lift  my  taper  to  the  sky 

As  they  who  hold  their  lamps  above  their  heads, 

Trusting  the  larger  currents  up  aloft, 

Rather  than  crossing  eddies  round  their  breast, 

Threatening  with  every  puff  the  flickering 

My  life  shall  be  a  challenge,  not  a  truce ! 
This  is  my  homage  to  the  mightier  powers, 


286  THE  POET  AT 

To  ask  my  boldest  question,  undismayed 
By  muttered  threats  that  some  hysteric  sense 
Of  wrong  or  insult  will  convulse  the  throne 
Where  wisdom  reigns  supreme  ;  and  if  I  err, 
They  all  must  err  who  have  to  feel  their  way 
As  bats  that  fly  at  noon ;  for  what  are  we 
But  creatures  of  the  night,  dragged  forth  by  day, 
Who  needs  must  stumble,  and  with  stammering 

steps 
Spell  out  their  paths  in  syllables  of  pain  ? 

Thou  wilt  not  hold  in  scorn  the  child  who  dares 
Look  up  to  Thee,  the  Father,  —  dares  to  ask 
More    than    Thy  wisdom   answers.     From    Thy 

hand 

The  worlds  were  cast ;  yet  every  leaflet  claims 
From  that  same  hand  its  little  shining  sphere 
Of  star-lit  dew  ;  thine  image,  the  great  sun, 
Girt  with  his  mantle  of  tempestuous  flame, 
Glares  in  mid-heaven  ;  but  to  his  noontide  blaze 
The  slender  violet  lifts  its  lidless  eye, 
And  from  his  splendor  steals  its  fairest  hue, 
Its  sweetest  perfume  from  his  scorching  fire. 

I  may  just  as  well  stop  here  as  anywhere, 
for  there  is  more  of  the  manuscript  to  come, 
and  I  can  only  give  it  in  instalments. 

The  Young  Astronomer  had  told  me  I 
might  read  any  portions  of  his  manuscript  I 
saw  fit  to  certain  friends.  I  tried  this  last 
extract  on  the  old  Master. 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  287 

It 's  the  same  story  we  all  have  to  tell,  — 
said  he,  when  I  had  done  reading.  —  We  are 
all  asking  questions  nowadays.  I  should  like 
to  hear  him  read  some  of  his  verses  himself, 
and  I  think  some  of  the  other  boarders  would 
like  to.  I  wonder  if  he  would  n't  do  it,  if  we 
asked  him  !  Poets  read  their  own  composi 
tions  in  a  singsong  sort  of  way ;  but  they  do 
seem  to  love  'em  so,  that  I  always  enjoy  it. 
It  makes  me  laugh  a  little  inwardly  to  see 
how  they  dandle  their  poetical  babies,  but  I 
don't  let  them  know  it.  We  must  get  up  a 
select  party  of  the  boarders  to  hear  him  read. 
We  '11  send  him  a  regular  invitation.  I  will 
put  my  name  at  the  head  of  it,  and  you  shall 
write  it. 

—  That  ivas  neatly  done.  How  I  hate  writ 
ing  such  things !  But  I  suppose  I  must  do  it. 


VIII. 
The  Master  and  I  had  been  thinking  for 

O 

some  time  of  trying  to  get  the  Young  As 
tronomer  round  to  our  side  of  the  table. 
There  are  many  subjects  on  which  both  of  us 
like  to  talk  with  him,  and  it  would  be  conven 
ient  to  have  him  nearer  to  us.  How  to  man 
age  it  was  not  quite  so  clear  as  it  might  have 


288  THE  POET  AT 

been.  The  Scarabee  wanted  to  sit  with  his 
back  to  the  light,  as  it  was  in  his  present  po 
sition.  He  used  his  eyes  so  much  in  study 
ing  minute  objects,  that  he  wished  to  spare 
them  all  fatigue,  and  did  not  like  facing  a 
window.  Neither  of  us  cared  to  ask  the  Man 
of  Letters,  so  called,  to  change  his  place,  and 
of  course  we  could  not  think  of  making  such 
a  request  of  the  Young  Girl  or  the  Lady.  So 
we  were  at  a  stand  with  reference  to  this 
project  of  ours. 

But  while  we  were  proposing,  Fate  or 
Providence  disposed  everything  for  us.  The 
Man  of  Letters,  so  called,  was  missing  one 
morning,  having  folded  his  tent  —  that  is, 
packed  his  carpet-bag  —  with  the  silence  of 
the  Arabs,  and  encamped  —  that  is,  taken 
lodgings  —  in  some  locality  which  he  had  for 
gotten  to  indicate. 

The  Landlady  bore  this  sudden  bereave 
ment  remarkably  well.  Her  remarks  and 
reflections,  though  borrowing  the  aid  of 
homely  imagery  and  doing  occasional  vio 
lence  to  the  nicer  usages  of  speech,  were  not 
without  philosophical  discrimination. 

—  I  like  a  gentleman  that  is  a  gentleman. 
But  there  's  a  difference  in  what  folks  call 
gentlemen  as  there  is  in  what  you  put  on 
table.  There  is  cabjbages  and  there  is  cauli- 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  289 

flowers.  There  is  clams  and  there  is  oysters. 
There  is  mackerel  and  there  is  salmon.  And 
there  is  some  that  knows  the  difference  and 
some  that  doosn't.  I  had  a  little  account 
with  that  boarder  that  he  forgot  to  settle  be 
fore  he  went  off,  so  all  of  a  suddin.  I  sha'n't 
say  anything  about  it.  I  've  seen  the  time 
when  I  should  have  felt  bad  about  losing 
what  he  owed  me,  but  it  was  no  great  mat 
ter  ;  and  if  he  '11  only  stay  away  now  he  's 
gone,  I  can  stand  losing  it,  and  not  cry  my 
eyes  out  nor  lay  awake  all  night  neither.  I 
never  had  ought  to  have  took  him.  Where 
he  come  from  and  where  he  's  gone  to  is  un 
beknown  to  me.  If  he  'd  only  smoked  good 
tobacco,  I  would  n't  have  said  a  word  ;  but 
it  was  such  dreadful  stuff,  it  '11  take  a  week 
to  get  his  chamber  sweet  enough  to  show 
them  that  asks  for  rooms.  It  doos  smell 
like  all  possest. 

—  Left    any  goods  ?  —  asked   the    Sales 
man. 

—  Or  dockermunts?  —  added  the  Member 
of  the  Haouse. 

The  Landlady  answered  with  a  faded  smile, 
which  implied  that  there  was  no  hope  in  that 
direction.  Dr.  Benjamin,  with  a  sudden  re 
currence  of  youthful  feeling,  made  a  fan  with 
the  fingers  of  his  right  hand,  the  second  pha~ 


290  THE  POET  AT 

lanx  of  the  thumb  resting  on  the  tip  of  the 
nose,  and  the  remaining  digits  diverging  from 
each  other,  in  the  plane  of  the  median  line 
of  the  face,  —  I  suppose  this  is  the  way  he 
would  have  described  the  gesture,  which  is 
almost  a  specialty  of  the  Parisian  gamin. 
That  Boy  immediately  copied  it,  and  added 
greatly  to  its  effect  by  extending  the  fin 
gers  of  the  other  hand  in  a  line  with  those 
of  the  first,  and  vigorously  agitating  those  of 
the  two  hands,  —  a  gesture  which  acts  like 
a  puncture  on  the  distended  self-esteem  of 
one  to  whom  it  is  addressed,  and  cheapens 
the  memory  of  the  absent  to  a  very  low 
figure. 

I  wish  the  reader  to  observe  that  I  treas 
ure  up  with  interest  all  the  words  uttered  by 
the  Salesman.  It  must  have  been  noticed 
that  he  very  rarely  speaks.  Perhaps  he  has 
an  inner  life,  with  its  own  deep  emotional, 
and  lofty  contemplative  elements,  but  as  we 
see  him,  he  is  the  boarder  reduced  to  the 
simplest  expression  of  that  term.  Yet,  like 
most  human  creatures,  he  has  generic  and 
specific  characters  not  unworthy  of  being 
studied.  I  notice  particularly  a  certain  elec 
trical  briskness  of  movement,  such  as  one 
may  see  in  a  squirrel,  which  clearly,  belongs 
to  his  calling.  The  dry-goodsman's  life  be- 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  291 

hind  his  counter  is  a  succession  of  sudden, 
snappy  perceptions  and  brief  series  of  coor 
dinate  spasms,  as  thus  :  — 

"  Purple  calico,  three  quarters  wide,  six 
yards." 

Up  goes  the  arm  ;  bang  !  tumbles  out  the 
flat  roll  and  turns  half  a  dozen  somersets,  as 
if  for  the  fun  of  the  thing  ;  the  six  yards  of 
calico  hurry  over  the  measuring-nails,  hunch 
ing  their  backs  up,  like  six  cankerworms ; 
out  jump  the  scissors  ;  snip,  clip,  rip ;  the 
stuff  is  wisped  up,  brown-papered,  tied,  la 
belled,  delivered,  and  the  man  is  himself 
again,  like  a  child  just  come  out  of  a  convul 
sion-fit.  Think  of  a  man's  having  some  hun 
dreds  of  these  semi-epileptic  seizures  every 
day,  and  you  need  not  wonder  that  he  does 
not  say  much ;  these  fits  take  the  talk  all  out 
of  him. 

But  because  he,  or  any  other  man,  does 
not  say  much,  it  does  not  follow  that  he  may 
not  have,  as  I  have  said,  an  exalted  and  in 
tense  inner  life.  I  have  known  a  number  of 
cases  where  a  man  who  seemed  thoroughly 
commonplace  and  unemotional  has  all  at  once 
surprised  everybody  by  telling  the  story  of 
his  hidden  life  far  more  pointedly  and  dra 
matically  than  any  playwright  or  novelist  or 
poet  could  have  told  it  for  him.  I  will  not 


292  THE  POET  AT 

insult  your  intelligence.  Beloved,  by  saying 
hoio  lie  has  told  it. 

—  We  had  been  talking  over  the  subjects 
touched  upon  in  the  Lady's  letter. 

- 1  suppose  one  man  in  a  dozen  —  said 
the  Master  —  ought  to  be  born  a  sceptic. 
That  was  the  proportion  among  the  Apos 
tles,  at  any  rate. 

—  So  there  was  one  Judas  among  them, 
- 1  remarked. 

-  Well,  —  said    the    Master,  —  they  Ve 
been    whitewashing    Judas    of     late.     But 
never  mind  him.     I  did  not  say  there  was 
not  one  rogue  on  the  average  among  a  dozen 
men.     I  don't  see  how  that  would  interfere 
with  my  proposition.     If  I  say  that  among 
a   dozen    men    you  ought  to  find    one  that 
weighs  over  a  hundred  and  fifty  pounds,  and 
you  tell  me  that  there  were  twelve  men  in 
your  club,  and  one   of  'em  had  red  hair,  I 
don't  see  that  you  have  materially  damaged 
my  statement. 

—  I  thought  it  best  to  let  the  old  Master 
have  his  easy  victory,  which  was  more  appar 
ent  than  real,  very  evidently,  and  he  went  on. 

-  When  the  Lord  sends  out  a  batch  of 
human  beings,  say  a  hundred  —       Did  you 
ever  read  my  book,  the  new  edition  of  it,  I 
mean  ? 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  293 

It  is  rather  awkward  to  answer  such  a 
question  in  the  negative,  but  I  said,  with  the 
best  grace  I  could,  "  No,  not  the  last  edi 
tion." 

-Well,  I  must  give  you  a  copy  of  it. 
My  book  and  I  are  pretty  much  the  same 
thing.  Sometimes  I  steal  from  my  book  in 
my  talk  without  mentioning  it,  and  then  I 
say  to  myself,  "  O,  that  won't  do  ;  everybody 
has  read  my  book  and  knows  it  by  heart." 
And  then  the  other  /  says,  —  you  know 
there  are  two  of  us,  right  and  left,  like  a 
pair  of  shoes,  —  the  other  /  says,  "  You  're  a 
—  something  or  other  —  fool.  They  have  n't 
read  your  confounded  old  book ;  besides,  if 
they  have,  they  have  forgotten  all  about  it." 
Another  time,  I  say,  thinking  I  will  be  very 
honest,  "  I  have  said  something  about  that 
in  my  book  " ;  -and  then  the  other  I  says, 
"  What  a  Balaam's  quadruped  you  are  to 
tell  'em  it 's  in  your  book ;  they  don't  care 
whether  it  is  or  not,  if  it 's  anything  worth 
saying ;  and  if  it  is  n't  worth  saying,  what 
are  you  braying  for?"  That  is  a  rather 
sensible  fellow,  that  other  chap  we  talk  with, 
but  an  impudent  whelp.  I  never  got  such 
abuse  from  any  blackguard  in  my  life  as  I 
have  from  that  No.  2  of  me,  the  one  that  an 
swers  the  other's  questions  and  makes  the 


294  THE  POET  AT 

comments,  and  does  what  in  demotic  phrase 
is  called  the  "  sarsing." 

—  I  laughed  at  that.     I  have  just  such  a 
fellow  always  with  me,  as  wise  as  Solomon, 
if  I  would  only  heed  him  ;  but  as  insolent 
as  Shimei,  cursing,  and  throwing  stones  and 
dirt,  and  behaving  as  if  he  had  the  traditions 
of  the  "  ape-like  human  being  "  born  with 
him    rather    than    civilized    instincts.     One 
does  not  have  to  be  a  king  to  know  what  it 
is  to  keep  a  king's  jester. 

—  I   mentioned   my  book,  —  the   Master 
said,  —  because  I  have  something  in  it   on 
the  subject  we  were  talking  about.    I  should 
like  to  read  you  a  passage  here  and  there 
out  of  it,  where  I  have  expressed  myself  a 
little  more  freely  on  some  of  those  matters 
we  handle    in  conversation.     If    you   don't 
quarrel  with  it,  I  must  give  you  a  copy  of 
the  book.     It 's  a  rather  serious  thing  to  get 
a  copy  of  a  book  from  the  writer  of  it.     It 
has  made  my  adjectives  sweat  pretty  hard,  I 
know,  to  put  together  an  answer  returning 
thanks  and  not  lying  beyond  the  twilight  of 
veracity,  if  one  may  use  a  figure.     Let  me 
try  a  little  of  my  book  on  you,  in  divided 
doses,  as  my  friends  the  doctors  say. 

—  Fiat  experimcntum  in  corpore  vili,  — 
I  said,  laughing  at  my  own  expense.    I  don't 


THE  BEE AKF AST-TABLE.  295 

doubt  the  medicament  is  quite  as  good  as 
the  patient  deserves,  and  probably  a  great 
deal  better, 1  added,  reinforcing  my  fee 
ble  compliment. 

[When  you  pay  a  compliment  to  an  au 
thor,  don't  qualify  it  in  the  next  sentence  so 
as  to  take  all  the  goodness  out  of  it.  Now  I 
am  thinking  of  it,  I  will  give  you  one  or  two 
pieces  of  advice.  Be  careful  to  assure  your 
self  that  the  person  you  are  talking  with 
wrote  the  article  or  book  you  praise.  It  is 
not  very  pleasant  to  be  told,  "  Well,  there, 
now  !  I  always  liked  your  writings,  but  you 
never  did  anything  half  so  good  as  this  last 
piece,"  and  then  to  have  to  tell  the  blunderer 
that  this  last  piece  is  n't  yours,  but  t'  other 
man's.  Take  care  that  the  phrase  or  sen 
tence  you  commend  is  not  one  that  is  in 
quotation-marks.  "  The  best  thing  in  your 
piece,  I  think,  is  a  line  I  do  not  remember 
meeting  before  ;  it  struck  me  as  very  true 
and  well  expressed  :  — 

*  An  honest  man  's  the  noblest  work  of  God.'  " 
"  But,  my  dear  lady,  that  line  is  one  which 
is  to  be  found  in  a  writer  of  the  last  century, 
and  not  original  with  me."  One  ought  not 
to  have  undeceived  her,  perhaps,  but  one  is 
naturally  honest,  and  cannot  bear  to  be  cred 
ited  with  what  is  not  his  own.  The  lady 


296  THE  POET  AT 

blushes,  of  course,  and  says  she  has  not  read 
much  ancient  literature,  or  some  such  thing. 
The  pearl  upon  the  Ethiop's  arm  is  very 
pretty  in  verse,  but  one  does  not  care  to  fur 
nish  the  dark  background  for  other  persons' 
jewelry.] 

I  adjourned  from  the  table  in  company 
with  the  old  Master  to  his  apartments. 
He  was  evidently  in  easy  circumstances,  for 
he  had  the  best  accommodations  the  house 
afforded.  We  passed  through  a  reception- 
room  to  his  library,  where  everything  showed 
that  he  had  ample  means  for  indulging  the 
modest  tastes  of  a  scholar. 

—  The  first  thing,  naturally,  when  one 
enters  a  scholar's  study  or  library,  is  to  look 
at  his  books.  One  gets  a  notion  very  speed 
ily  of  his  tastes  and  the  range  of  his  pur 
suits  by  a  glance  round  his  book-shelves. 

Of  course,  you  know  there  are  many  fine 
houses  where  the  library  is  a  part  of  the  up 
holstery,  so  to  speak.  Books  in  handsome 
binding  kept  locked  under  plate  -  glass  in 
showy  dwarf  bookcases  are  as  important  to 
stylish  establishments  as  servants  in  livery, 
who  sit  with  folded  arms,  are  to  stylish 
equipages.  I  suppose  those  wonderful  statues 
with  the  folded  arms  do  sometimes  change 
their  attitude,  and  I  suppose  those  books  with 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  297 

the  gilded  backs  do  sometimes  get  opened, 
but  it  is  nobody's  business  whether  they  do 
or  not,  and  it  is  not  best  to  ask  too  many 
questions. 

This  sort  of  thing  is  common  enough,  but 
there  is  another  case  that  may  prove  decep 
tive  if  you  undertake  to  judge  from  appear 
ances.  Once  in  a  while  you  will  come  on  a 
house  where  you  will  find  a  family  of  read 
ers  and  almost  no  library.  Some  of  the  most 
indefatigable  devourers  of  literature  have 
very  few  books.  They  belong  to  book  clubs, 
they  haunt  the  public  libraries,  they  borrow 
of  friends,  and  somehow  or  other  get  hold  of 
everything  they  want,  scoop  out  all  it  holds 
for  them,  and  have  done  with  it.  When  / 
want  a  book,  it  is  as  a  tiger  wants  a  sheep. 
I  must  have  it  with  one  spring,  and,  if  I 
miss  it,  go  away  defeated  and  hungry.  And 
my  experience  with  public  libraries  is  that 
the  first  volume  of  the  book  I  inquire  for  is 
out,  unless  I  happen  to  want  the  second,  when 
that  is  out. 

—  I  was  pretty  well  prepared  to    under 
stand  the  Master's  library  and  his  account 
of  it.    We  seated  ourselves  in  two  very  com 
fortable  chairs,  and  I  began  the    conversa 
tion. 

—  I  see  you  have  a  large  and  rather  mis- 


298  THE  POET  AT 

cellaneous  collection  of  books.  Did  you  get 
them  together  by  accident  or  according  to 
some  preconceived  plan? 

-  Both,  sir,  both,  —  the  Master  answered. 
—  When  Providence  throws  a  good  book  in 
my  way,  I  bow  to  its  decree  and  purchase  it  as 
an  act  of  piety,  if  it  is  reasonably  or  unrea 
sonably  cheap.  I  adopt  a  certain  number  of 
books  every  year,  out  of  a  love  for  the  found 
lings  and  stray  children  of  other  people's 
brains  that  nobody  seems  to  care  for.  Look 
here. 

He  took  down  a  Greek  Lexicon  finely 
bound  in  calf,  and  spread  it  open. 

Do  you  see  that  Hedericus  ?  I  had  Greek 
dictionaries  enough  and  to  spare,  but  I  saw 
that  noble  quarto  lying  in  the  midst  of  an 
ignoble  crowd  of  cheap  books,  and  marked 
with  a  price  which  I  felt  to  be  an  insult  to 
scholarship,  to  the  memory  of  Homer,  sir, 
and  the  awful  shade  of  ^Eschylus.  I  paid 
the  mean  price  asked  for  it,  and  I  wanted  to 
double  it,  but  I  suppose  it  would  have  been 
a  foolish  sacrifice  of  coin  to  sentiment.  I 
love  that  book  for  its  looks  and  behavior. 
None  of  your  "  half-calf  "  economies  in  that 
volume,  sir !  And  see  how  it  lies  open  any 
where  !  There  is  n't  a  book  in  my  library 
that  lias  such  a  generous  way  of  laying  its 


THE  BEE AKF AST-TABLE.  299 

treasures  before  you.  From  Alpha  to  Omega, 
calm,  assured  rest  at  any  page  that  your  choice 
or  accident  may  light  on.  No  lifting  of  a 
rebellious  leaf  like  an  upstart  servant  that 
does  not  know  his  place  and  can  never  be 
taught  manners,  but  tranquil,  well-bred  re 
pose.  A  book  may  be  a  perfect  gentleman 
in  its  aspect  and  demeanor,  and  this  book 
would  be  good  company  for  personages  like 
Roger  Ascham  and  his  pupils  the  Lady  Eliz 
abeth  and  the  Lady  Jane  Grey. 

The  Master  was  evidently  riding  a  hobby, 
and  what  I  wanted  to  know  was  the  plan  on 
which  he  had  formed  his  library.  So  I 
brought  him  back  to  the  point  by  asking 
him  the  question  in  so  many  words. 

Yes,  —  he  said,  —  I  have  a  kind  of  notion 
of  the  way  in  which  a  library  ought  to  be 
put  together  —  no,  I  don't  mean  that,  I  mean 
ought  to  grow.  I  don't  pretend  to  say  that 
mine  is  a  model,  but  it  serves  my  turn  well 
enough,  and  it  represents  me  pretty  accu 
rately.  A  scholar  must  shape  his  own  shell, 
secrete  it,  one  might  almost  say,  for  secre 
tion  is  only  separation,  you  know,  of  certain 
elements  derived  from  the  materials  of  the 
world  about  us.  And  a  scholar's  study,  with 
the  books  lining  its  walls,  is  his  shell.  It 
isn't  a  mollusk's  shell,  either  ;  it's  a  cad- 


300  THE  POET  AT 

dice-worm's  shell.     You  know  about  the  cad- 
dice-worm  ? 

—  More  or  less  ;  less  rather  than  more,  — 
was  my  humble  reply. 

Well,  sir,  the  caddice-worm  is  the  larva  of 
a  fly,  and  he  makes  a  case  for  himself  out  of 
all  sorts  of  bits  of  everything  that  happen  to 
suit  his  particular  fancy,  dead  or  alive,  sticks 
and  stones  and  small  shells  with  their  owners 
in  'em,  living  as  comfortable  as  ever.  Every 
one  of  these  caddice-worms  has  his  special 
fancy  as  to  what  he  will  pick  up  and  glue  to 
gether,  with  a  kind  of  natural  cement  he  pro 
vides  himself,  to  make  his  case  out  of.  In 
it  he  lives,  sticking  his  head  and  shoulders 
out  once  in  a  while,  that  is  all.  Don't  you 
see  that  a  student  in  his  library  is  a  caddice- 
worm  in  his  case  ?  I  've  told  you  that  I  take 
an  interest  in  pretty  much  everything,  and 
don't  mean  to  fence  out  any  human  interests 
from  the  private  grounds  of  my  intelligence. 
Then,  again,  there  is  a  subject,  perhaps  I 
may  say  there  is  more  than  one,  that  I  want 
to  exhaust,  to  know  to  the  very  bottom. 
And  besides,  of  course  I  must  have  my  lit 
erary  harem,  my  pare  aux  cerfs,  where  my 
favorites  await  my  moments  of  leisure  and 
pleasure,  —  my  scarce  and  precious  editions, 
my  luxurious  typographical  masterpieces ; 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  301 

my  Delilahs,  that  take  my  head  in  their  lap : 
the  pleasant  story-tellers  and  the  like ;  the 
books  I  love  because  they  are  fair  to  look 
upon,  prized  by  collectors,  endeared  by  old 
associations,  secret  treasures  that  nobody  else 
knows  anything  about ;  books,  in  short,  that 
I  like  for  insufficient  reasons  it  may  be,  but 
peremptorily,  and  mean,  to  like  and  to  love 
and  to  cherish  till  death  us  do  part. 

Don't  you  see  I  have  given  you  a  key  to 
the  way  my  library  is  made  up,  so  that  you 
can  apriorize  the  plan  according  to  which  I 
have  filled  my  bookcases  ?  I  will  tell  you 
how  it  is  carried  out. 

In  the  first  place,  you  see,  I  have  four  ex 
tensive  cyclopaedias.  Out  of  these  I  can  get 
information  enough  to  serve  my  immediate 
purpose  on  almost  any  subject.  These,  of 
course,  are  supplemented  by  geographical, 
biographical,  bibliographical,  and  other  dic 
tionaries,  including  of  course  lexicons  to  all 
the  languages  I  ever  meddle  with.  Next  to 
these  come  the  works  relating  to  my  one  or 
two  specialties,  and  these  collections  I  make 
as  perfect  as  I  can.  Every  library  should 
try  to  be  complete  on  something,  if  it  were 
only  on  the  history  of  pin-heads.  I  don't 
mean  that  I  buy  all  the  trashy  compilations 
on  my  special  subjects,  but  I  try  to  have  all 


302  THE  POET  AT 

the  works  of  any  real  importance  relating  to 
them,  old  as  well  as  new.  In  the  following 
compartment  you  will  find  the  great  authors 
in  all  the  languages  I  have  mastered,  from 
Homer  and  Hesiod  downward  to  the  last 
great  English  name.  This  division,  you  see, 
you  can  make  almost  as  extensive  or  as  lim 
ited  as  you  choose.  You  can  crowd  the 
great  representative  writers  into  a  small 
compass  ;  or  you  can  make  a  library  consist 
ing  only  of  the  different  editions  of  Horace, 
if  you  have  space  and  money  enough.  Then 
comes  the  ffarem^  the  shelf  or  the  bookcase 
of  Delilahs,  that  you  have  paid  wicked  prices 
for,  that  you  love  without  pretending  to  be 
reasonable  about  it,  and  would  bag  in  case 
of  fire  before  all  the  rest,  just  as  Mr.  Town- 
ley  took  the  Clytie  to  his  carriage  when  the 
anti-Catholic  mob  threatened  his  house  in 
1780.  As  for  the  foundlings  like  my  He- 
dericus,  they  go  among  their  peers  ;  it  is  a 
pleasure  to  take  them  from  the  dusty  stall 
where  they  were  elbowed  by  plebeian  school- 
books  and  battered  odd  volumes,  and  give 
them  Alduses  and  Elzevirs  for  companions. 

Nothing  remains  but  the  Infirmary.  The 
most  painful  subjects  are  the  unfortunates 
that  have  lost  a  cover.  Bound  a  hundred 
years  ago,  perhaps,  and  one  of  the  rich  old 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  303 

browned  covers  gone  —  what  a  pity  !  Do 
you  know  what  to  do  about  it  ?  I  '11  tell 
you,  —  no,  I  '11  shoiu  you.  Look  at  this  vol 
ume.  M.  T.  Oiceronis  Opera,  —  a  dozen 
of  'em,  —  one  of  'em  minus  half  his  cover,  a 
poor  one-legged  cripple,  six  months  ago,  — 
now  see  him. 

—  He    looked    very   respectably   indeed, 
both    covers    dark,    ancient,    very    decently 
matched ;  one  would  hardly  notice  the  fact 
that  they  were  not  twins. 

—  1  '11   tell  you    what  I  did.     You    poor 
devil,  said  I,  you  are  a  disgrace  to  your  fam 
ily.     We  must  send  you  to  a  surgeon  and 
have  some  kind  of  a  Taliacotian  operation 
performed    on   you.     (You    remember    the 
operation    as    described    in    Hudibras,    of 
course.)     The  first  thing  was  to  find  a  sub 
ject  of  similar  age  and  aspect  ready  to  part 
with  one  of   his  members.     So    I  went   to 
Quidlibet's,  —  you  know  Quidlibet  and  that 
hieroglyphic  sign  of  his  with  the  omniscient- 
looking  eye  as  its  most  prominent  feature, 
—  and  laid   my  case   before  him.     I   want 
you,  said  I,  to  look  up  an  old  book  of  mighty 
little    value,  —  one    of   your  ten-cent   vaga 
bonds  would  be  the  sort  of  thing,  —  but  an 
old  beggar,  with  a  cover  like  this,  and  lay  it 
by  for  me. 


304  THE  POET  AT 

And  Quidlibet,  who  is  a  pleasant  body  to 
deal  with,  —  only  he  has  insulted  one  or  two 
gentlemanly  books  by  selling  them  to  me  at 
very  low-bred  and  shamefully  insufficient 
prices,  —  Quidlibet,  I  say,  laid  by  three  old 
books  for  me  to  help  myself  from,  and  did 
n't  take  the  trouble  even  to  make  me  pay 
the  thirty  cents  for  'em.  Well,  said  I  to 
myself,  let  us  look  at  our  three  books  that 
have  undergone  the  last  insult  short  of  the 
trunk-maker's  or  the  paper-mills,  and  see 
what  they  are.  There  may  be  something 
worth  looking  at  in  one  or  the  other  of  'em. 

Now  do  you  know  it  was  with  a  kind  of  a 
tremor  that  I  untied  the  package  and  looked 
at  these  three  unfortunates,  too  humble  for 
the  companionable  dime  to  recognize  as  its 
equal  in  value.  The  same  sort  of  feeling 
you  know  if  you  ever  tried  the  Bible-and- 
key,  or  the  Sortes  Virgiliance.  I  think  you 
will  like  to  know  what  the  three  books  were 
which  had  been  bestowed  upon  me  gratis, 
that  I  might  tear  away  one  of  the  covers  of 
the  one  that  best  matched  my  Cicero,  and 
give  it  to  the  binder  to  cobble  my  crippled 
volume  with. 

The  Master  took  the  three  books  from  a 
cupboard  and  continued. 

No.  I.  An  odd  volume  of  The  Adventurer. 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  305 

It  has  many  interesting  things  enough,  but 
is  made  precious  by  containing  Simon 
Browne's  famous  Dedication  to  the  Queen  of 
his  Answer  to  Tindal's  "  Christianity  as  old 
as  the  Creation."  Simon  Browne  was  the 
Man  ivithout  a  Soul.  An  excellent  person, 
a  most  worthy  dissenting  minister,  but  lying 
under  a  strange  delusion. 

Here  is  a  paragraph  from  his  Dedica 
tion  :  — 

u  He  was  once  a  man ;  and  of  some  little 
name  ;  but  of  no  worth,  as  his  present  un 
paralleled  case  makes  but  too  manifest ;  for 
by  the  immediate  hand  of  an  avenging  GOD, 
his  very  thinking  substance  has,  for  more 
than  seven  years,  been  continually  wasting 
away,  till  it  is  wholly  perished  out  of  him, 
if  it  be  not  utterly  come  to  nothing.  None, 
no,  not  the  least  remembrance  of  its  very 
ruins,  remains,  not  the  shadow  of  an  idea  is 
left,  nor  any  sense  that  so  much  as  one  sin 
gle  one,  perfect  or  imperfect,  whole  or  di 
minished,  ever  did  appear  to  a  mind  within 
him,  or  was  perceived  by  it." 

Think  of  this  as  the  Dedication  of  a  book 
"  universally  allowed  to  be  the  best  which 
that  controversy  produced,"  and  what  a 
flood  of  light  it  pours  on  the  insanities  of 
those  self-analyzing  diarists  whose  morbid 


306  THE  POET  AT 

reveries  have  been  so  often  mistaken  for 
piety  !  No.  I.  had  something  for  me,  then, 
besides  the  cover,  which  was  all  it  claimed 
to  have  worth  offering. 

No.  II.  was  "  A  View  of  Society  and  Man 
ners  in  Italy."  Vol.  III.  By  John  Moore, 
M.  D.  (Zeluco  Moore.)  You  know  his 
pleasant  book.  In  this  particular  volume 
what  interested  me  most,  perhaps,  was  the 
very  spirited  and  intelligent  account  of  the 
miracle  of  the  liquefaction  of  the  blood  of 
Saint  Januarius,  but  it  gave  me  an  hour's 
mighty  agreeable  reading.  So  much  for 
Number  Two. 

No.  III.  was  "  An  ESSAY  on  the  Great 
EFFECTS  of  Even  Languid  w&  Unheeded 
LOCAL  MOTION."  By  the  Hon.  Robert 
Boyle.  Published  in  1685,  and,  as  appears 
from  other  sources,  "  received  with  great  and 
general  applause."  I  confess  I  was  a  little 
startled  to  find  how  near  this  earlier  philos 
opher  had  come  to  the  modern  doctrines, 
such  as  are  illustrated  in  Tyndall's  "  Heat 
considered  as  a  Mode  of  Motion."  He 
speaks  of  "  Us,  who  endeavor  to  resolve  the 
Phenomena  of  Nature  into  Matter  and  Lo 
cal  motion."  That  sounds  like  the  nineteenth 
century,  but  what  shall  we  say  to  this  ?  "  As 
when  a  bar  of  iron  or  silver,  having  been 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  307 

well  hammered,  is  newly  taken  off  of  the  an 
vil  ;  though  the  eye  can  discern  no  motion  in 
it,  yet  the  touch  will  readily  perceive  it  to  be 
very  hot,  and  if  you  spit  upon  it,  the  brisk 
agitation  of  the  insensible  parts  will  become 
visible  in  that  which  they  will  produce  in  the 
liquor."  He  takes  a  bar  of  tin,  and  tries 
whether  by  bending  it  to  and  fro  two  or 
three  times  he  cannot  "  procure  a  considera 
ble  internal  commotion  among  the  parts  "  ; 
and  having  by  this  means  broken  or  cracked 
it  in  the  middle,  finds,  as  he  expected,  that 
the  middle  parts  had  considerably  heated 
each  other.  There  are  many  other  curious 
and  interesting  observations  in  the  volume 
which  I  should  like  to  tell  you  of,  but  these 
will  serve  my  purpose. 

—  Which    book    furnished   you   the    old 
cover  you  wanted  ?  —  said  I. 

—  Did  he  kill  the  oiul  ?  —  said  the  Mas 
ter,  laughing.      [I  suppose  you,  the  reader, 
know  the  owl  story.]  —  It  was  Number  Two 
that  lent  me  one  of  his  covers.    Poor  wretch  ! 
He  was  one  of  three,  and  had  lost  his  two 
brothers.     From  him  that  hath  not  shall  be 
taken  even  that  which  he  hath.     The  Scrip 
ture  had  to  be  fulfilled  in  his  case.     But  I 
couldn't    help   saying   to  myself,  What  do 
you  keep  writing  books  for,  when  the  stalls 


308  THE  POET  AT 

are  covered  all  over  with  'em,  good  books, 
too,  that  nobody  will  give  ten  cents  apiece 
for,  lying  there  like  so  many  dead  beasts  of 
burden,  of  110  account  except  to  strip  off 
their  hides  ?  What  is  the  use,  I  say  ?  I  have 
made  a  book  or  two  in  my  time,  and  I  am 
making  another  that  perhaps  will  see  the 
light  one  of  these  days.  But  if  I  had  my 
life  to  live  over  again,  I  think  I  should  go  in 
for  silence,  and  get  as  near  to  Nirvana  as  I 
could.  This  language  is  such  a  paltry  tool  I 
The  handle  of  it  cuts  and  the  blade  does  n't. 
You  muddle  yourself  by  not  knowing  what 
you  mean  by  a  word,  and  send  out  your 
unanswered  riddles  and  rebuses  to  clear  up 
other  people's  difficulties.  It  always  seems 
to  me  that  talk  is  a  ripple  and  thought  is  a 
ground  swell.  A  string  of  words,  that  mean 
pretty  much  anything,  helps  you  in  a  certain 
sense  to  get  hold  of  a  thought,  just  as  a  string 
of  syllables  that  mean  nothing  helps  you  to 
a  word  ;  but  it 's  a  poor  business,  it 's  a  poor 
business,  and  the  more  you  study  definition 
the  more  you  find  out  how  poor  it  is.  Do 
you  know  I  sometimes  think  our  little  ento 
mological  neighbor  is  doinjj  a  sounder  busi- 

O  O  O 

ness  than  we  people  that  make  books  about 
ourselves  and  our  slippery  abstractions  ?  A 
man  can  see  the  spots  on  a  bug  and  count  'em, 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  309 

and  tell  what  their  color  is,  and  put  another 
bu<r  alongside  of  him  and  see  whether  the 

o  o 

two  are  alike  or  different.  And  when  he 
uses  a  word  he  knows  just  what  he  means. 
There  is  no  mistake  as  to  the  meaning-  and 
identity  of  pulex  irritans,  confound  him  ! 

—  What  if  we  should  look  in,  some  day, 
on  the  Scarabeeist,  as  he   calls  himself  ?  — 
said  I.  —  The   fact  is  the  Master  had  got 
agoing  at  such  a  rate  that  I  was  willing  to 
give  a  little  turn  to  the  conversation. 

—  O  very  well,  —  said  the  Master,  —  I 
had  some  more  things  to  say,  but  I  don't 
doubt  they'll  keep.  And  besides,  I  take  an 
interest  in  entomology,  and  have  my  own 
opinion  on  the  meloe  question. 

—  You  don't  mean  to  say  you  have  studied 
insects  as  well  as  solar  systems  and  the  order 
of  things  generally  ? 

—  He  looked   pleased.     All  philosophers 
look  pleased  when  people  say  to  them  virtu 
ally,  "  Ye  are  gods."     The  Master  says  he  is 
vain  constitutionally,  and  thanks  God  that 
he  is.     I  don't  think  he  has  enough  vanity 
to  make  a  fool  of   himself  with  it,  but  the 
simple  truth  is  he  cannot  help  knowing  that 
he  has  a  wide  and  lively  intelligence,  and  it 
pleases  him  to  know  it,  and  to  be  reminded 
of  it,  especially  in  an  oblique  and  tangential 


310  THE  POET  AT 

sort  of  way,  so  as  not  to  look  like  downright 
flattery. 

Yes,  yes,  I  have  amused  a  summer  or  two 
with  insects,  among  other  things.  I  described 
a  new  tdbanus,  —  horsefly,  you  know,  — 
which,  I  think,  had  escaped  notice.  I  felt 
as  grand  when  I  showed  up  my  new  discov 
ery  as  if  I  had  created  the  beast.  I  don't 
doubt  Herschel  felt  as  if  he  had  made  a 
planet  when  he  first  showed  the  astronomers 
Georgium  Sidus,  as  he  called  it.  And  that 
reminds  me  of  something.  I  was  riding  on 
the  outside  of  a  stage-coach  from  London  to 
Windsor  in  the  year  —  never  mind  the  year, 
but  it  must  have  been  in  June,  I  suppose, 
for  I  bought  some  strawberries.  England 
owes  me  a  sixpence  with  interest  from  date, 
for  I  gave  the  woman  a  shilling,  and  the  coach 
contrived  to  start  or  the  woman  timed  it  so 
that  I  just  missed  getting  my  change.  What 
an  odd  thing  memory  is,  to  be  sure,  to  have 
kept  such  a  triviality,  and  have  lost  so  much 
that  was  invaluable !  She  is  a  crazy  wench, 
that  Mnemosyne  ;  she  throws  her  jewels  out 
of  the  window  and  locks  up  straws  and  old 
rags  in  her  strong  box. 

[De  profundis  !  said  I  to  myself,  the  bot 
tom  of  the  bushel  has  dropped  out !  Sancta 
Maria,  ora  pro  nobis  /] 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  311 

—  But  as  I  was  saying,  I  was  riding  on 
the  outside  of  a  stage-coach  from  London  to 
Windsor,  when  all  at  once  a  picture  familiar 
to  me  from  my  New  England  village  child 
hood  came  upon  me  like  a  reminiscence 
rather  than  a  revelation.  It  was  a  mighty 
bewilderment  of  slanted  masts  and  spars  and 
ladders  and  ropes,  from  the  midst  of  which 
a  vast  tube,  looking  as  if  it  might  be  a  piece 
of  ordnance  such  as  the  revolted  angels  bat 
tered  the  walls  of  Heaven  with,  according  to 
Milton,  lifted  its  muzzle  defiantly  towards 
the  sky.  Why,  you  blessed  old  rattletrap^ 
said  I  to  myself,  I  know  you  as  well  as  I 
know  my  father's  spectacles  and  snuff-box  ! 
And  that  same  crazy  witch  of  a  Memory,  so 
divinely  wise  and  foolish,  travels  thirty-five 
hundred  miles  or  so  in  a  single  pulse-beat, 
makes  straight  for  an  old  house  and  an  old 
library  and  an  old  corner  of  it,  and  whisks 
out  a  volume  of  an  old  cyclopedia,  and  there 
is  the  picture  of  which  this  is  the  original. 
Sir  William  Herschel's  great  telescope  !  It 
was  just  about  as  big,  as  it  stood  there  by 
the  roadside,  as  it  was  in  the  picture,  not 
much  different  any  way.  Why  should  it 
be  ?  The  pupil  of  your  eye  is  only  a  gimlet- 
hole,  not  so  very  much  bigger  than  the  eye 
of  a  sail-needle,  and  a  camel  has  to  go 


312  THE  POET  AT 

through  it  before  you  can  see  him.  You 
look  into  a  stereoscope  and  think  you  see  a 
miniature  of  a  building  or  a  mountain ;  you 
don't,  you  're  made  a  fool  of  by  your  lying 
intelligence,  as  you  call  it ;  you  see  the  build 
ing  and  the  mountain  just  as  large  as  with 
your  naked  eye  looking  straight  at  the  real 
objects.  Doubt  it,  do  you  ?  Perhaps  you  'd 
like  to  doubt  it  to  the  music  of  a  couple  of 
gold  five-dollar  pieces.  If  you  would,  say 
the  word,  and  man  and  money,  as  Messrs. 
Heenan  and  Morrissey  have  it,  shall  be 
forthcoming ;  for  I  will  make  you  look  at  a 
real  landscape  with  your  right  eye,  and  a 
stereoscopic  view  of  it  with  your  left  eye, 
both  at  once,  and  you  can  slide  one  over  the 
other  by  a  little  management  and  see  how 
exactly  the  picture  overlies  the  true  land 
scape.  We  won't  try  it  now,  because  I  want 
to  read  you  something  out  of  my  book. 

—  I  have  noticed  that  the  Master  very 
rarely  fails  to  come  back  to  his  original 
proposition,  though  he,  like  myself,  is  fond 
of  zigzagging  in  order  to  reach  it.  Men's 
minds  are  like  the  pieces  on  a  chess-board  in 
their  way  of  moving.  One  mind  creeps  from 
the  square  it  is  on  to  the  next,  straight  for 
ward,  like  the  pawns.  Another  sticks  close 
to  its  own  line  of  thought  and  follows  it  as 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  313 

far  as  it  goes,  with  no  heed  for  others'  opin 
ions,  as  the  bishop  sweeps  the  board  in  the 
line  of  his  own  color.  And  another  class  of 
minds  break  through  everything  that  lies  be 
fore  them,  ride  over  argument  and  opposition, 
and  go  to  the  end  of  the  board,  like  the  cas 
tle.  But  there  is  still  another  sort  of  intel 
lect  which  is  very  apt  to  jump  over  the 
thought  that  stands  next  and  come  down  in 
the  unexpected  way  of  the  knight.  But 
that  same  knight,  as  the  chess  manuals  will 
show  you,  will  contrive  to  get  on  to  every 
square  of  the  board  in  a  pretty  series  of 
moves  that  looks  like  a  pattern  of  embroid 
ery,  and  so  these  zigzagging  minds  like  the 
Master's,  and  I  suppose  my  own  is  something 
like  it,  will  sooner  or  later  get  back  to  the 
square  next  the  one  they  started  from. 

The  Master  took  down  a  volume  from  one 
of  the  shelves.  I  could  not  help  noticing 
that  it  was  a  shelf  near  his  hand  as  he  sat, 
and  that  the  volume  looked  as  if  he  had 
made  frequent  use  of  it.  I  saw,  too,  that  he 
handled  it  in  a  loving  sort  of  way  ;  the  ten 
derness  he  would  have  bestowed  on  a  wife 
and  children  had  to  find  a  channel  some 
where,  and  what  more  natural  than  that  he 
should  look  fondly  on  the  volume  which  held 
the  thoughts  that  had  rolled  themselves 


314  THE  POET  AT 

smooth  and  round  in  his  mind  like  pebbles 
on  a  beach,  the  dreams  which,  under  cover 
of  the  simple  artifices  such  as  all  writers  use, 
told  the  little  world  of  readers  his  secret 
hopes  and  aspirations,  the  fancies  which  had 
pleased  him  and  which  he  could  not  bear  to 
let  die  without  trying  to  please  others  with 
them?  I  have  a  great  sympathy  with  au 
thors,  most  of  all  with  unsuccessful  ones. 
If  one  had  a  dozen  lives  or  so,  it  would  all 
be  very  well,  but  to  have  only  a  single  ticket 
in  the  great  lottery,  and  have  that  drawn  a 
blank,  is  a  rather  sad  sort  of  thing.  So  I 
was  pleased  to  see  the  affectionate  kind  of 
pride  with  which  the  Master  handled  his 
book  ;  it  was  a  success,  in  its  way,  and  he 
looked  on  it  with  a  cheerful  sense  that  he 
had  a  right  to  be  proud  of  it.  The  Master 
opened  the  volume,  and,  putting  on  his  large 
round  glasses,  began  reading,  as  authors 
love  to  read  that  love  their  books. 

—  The  only  good  reason  for  believing  in 
the  stability  of  the  moral  order  of  things  is 
to  be  found  in  the  tolerable  steadiness  of 
human  averages.  Out  of  a  hundred  human 
beings  fifty-one  will  be  found  in  the  long 
run  on  the  side  of  the  right,  so  far  as  they 
know  it,  and  against  the  wrong.  They  will 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  315 

be  organizers  rather  than  disorganizes, 
helpers  and  not  hinderers  in  the  upward 
movement  of  the  race.  This  is  the  main 
fact  we  have  to  depend  on.  The  right  hand 
of  the  great  organism  is  a  little  stronger 
than  the  left,  that  is  all. 

Now  and  then  we  come  across  a  left- 
handed  man.  So  now  and  then  we  find  a 
tribe  or  a  generation,  the  subject  of  what  we 
may  call  moral  left-handedness,  but  that 
need  not  trouble  us  about  our  formula.  All 
we  have  to  do  is  to  spread  the  average  over 
a  wider  territory  or  a  longer  period  of  time. 
Any  race  or  period  that  insists  on  being  left- 
handed  must  go  under  if  it  comes  in  contact 
with  a  right-handed  one.  If  there  were,  as 
a  general  rule,  fifty-one  rogues  in  the  hun 
dred  instead  of  forty-nine,  all  other  qualities 
of  mind  and  body  being  equally  distributed 
between  the  two  sections,  the  order  of  things 
would  sooner  or  later  end  in  universal  dis 
order.  It  is  the  question  between  the  leak 
and  the  pumps. 

It  does  not  seem  very  likely  that  the  Cre 
ator  of  all  things  is  taken  by  surprise  at  wit 
nessing  anything  any  of  his  creatures  do  or 
think.  Men  have  sought  out  many  inven 
tions,  but  they  can  have  contrived  nothing 
which  did  not  exist  as  an  idea  in  the  omnis- 


316  THE  POET  AT 

cient  consciousness  to  which  past,  present, 
and  future  are  alike  Now. 

We  read  what  travellers  tell  us  about  the 
King  of  Dahomey,  or  the  Fejee  Island  peo 
ple,  or  the  short  and  simple  annals  of  the 
celebrities  recorded  in  the  Newcrate  Calen- 

O 

dar,  and  do  not  know  just  what  to  make  of 
these  brothers  and  sisters  of  the  race ;  but  I 
do  not  suppose  an  intelligence  even  as  high 
as  the  angelic  beings,  to  stop  short  there, 
would  see  anything  very  peculiar  or  wonder 
ful  about  them,  except  as  everything  is  won 
derful  and  unlike  everything  else. 

It  is  very  curious  to  see  how  science,  that 
is,  looking  at  and  arranging  the  facts  of  a 
case  with  our  own  eyes  and  our  own  intelli 
gence,  without  minding  what  somebody  else 
has  said,  or  how  some  old  majority  vote  went 
in  a  pack  of  intriguing  ecclesiastics,  —  I  say 
it  is  very  curious  to  see  how  science  is  catch 
ing  up  with  one  superstition  after  another. 

There  is  a  recognized  branch  of  science 
familiar  to  all  those  who  know  anything  of 
the  studies  relating  to  life,  under  the  name 
of  Teratology.  It  deals  with  all  sorts  of  mon 
strosities  which  are  to  be  met  with  in  living 
beings,  and  more  especially  in  animals.  It 
is  found  that  what  used  to  be  called  lusus 
natural,  or  freaks  of  nature,  are  just  as 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  317 

much,  subject  to  laws  as  the  naturally  devel 
oped  forms  of  living  creatures. 

The  rustic  looks  at  the  Siamese  twins,  and 
thinks  he  is  contemplating  an  unheard-of 
anomaly ;  but  there  are  plenty  of  cases  like 
theirs  in  the  books  of  scholars,  and  though 
they  are  not  quite  so  common  as  double  cher 
ries,  the  mechanism  of  their  formation  is  not 
a  whit  more  mysterious  than  that  of  the 
twinned  fruits.  Such  cases  do  not  disturb 
the  average  arrangement ;  we  have  Changs 
and  Engs  at  one  pole,  and  Cains  and  Abels 
at  the  other.  One  child  is  born  with  six  fin 
gers  on  each  hand,  and  another  falls  short  by 
one  or  more  fingers  of  his  due  allowance ; 
but  the  glover  puts  his  faith  in  the  great  law 
of  averages,  and  makes  his  gloves  with  five 
fingers  apiece,  trusting  nature  for  their  coun 
terparts. 

Thinking  people  are  not  going  to  be  scared 
out  of  explaining  or  at  least  trying  to  explain 
things  by  the  shrieks  of  persons  whose  beliefs 
are  disturbed  thereby.  Comets  were  portents 
to  Increase  Mather,  President  of  Harvard 
College  ;  "  preachers  of  Divine  wrath,  her 
alds  and  messengers  of  evil  tidings  to  the 
world."  It  is  not  so  very  long  since  Profes 
sor  Winthrop  was  teaching  at  the  same  in 
stitution.  I  can  remember  two  of  his  boys 


318  THE  POET  AT 

very  well,  old  boys,  it  is  true,  they  were,  and 
one  of  them  wore  a  three-cornered  cocked  hat ; 
but  the  father  of  these  boys,  whom,  as  I 
say,  I  can  remember,  had  to  defend  himself 
against  the  minister  of  the  Old  South  Church 
for  the  impiety  of  trying  to  account  for  earth 
quakes  on  natural  principles.  And  his  an 
cestor,  Governor  Winthrop,  would  probably 
have  shaken  his  head  over  his  descendant's 
dangerous  audacity,  if  one  may  judge  by  the 
solemn  way  in  which  he  mentions  poor  Mrs. 
Hutchinson's  unpleasant  experience,  which 
so  grievously  disappointed  her  maternal  ex 
pectations.  But  people  used  always  to  be 
terribly  frightened  by  those  irregular  vital 
products  which  we  now  call  "  interesting 
specimens  "  and  carefully  preserve  in  jars  of 
alcohol.  It  took  next  to  nothing  to  make  a 
panic ;  a  child  was  born  a  few  centuries  ago 
with  six  teeth  in  its  head,  and  about  that 
time  the  Turks  began  gaining  great  advan 
tages  over  the  Christians.  Of  course  there 
was  an  intimate  connection  between  the  prod 
igy  and  the  calamity.  So  said  the  wise  men 
of  that  day. 

—  All  these  out-of-the-way  cases  are  stud 
ied  connectedly  now,  and  are  found  to  obey 
very  exact  rules.  With  a  little  management 
one  can  even  manufacture  living  monstrosi- 


THE  BEE AKF AST-TABLE.  319 

ties.  Malformed  salmon  and  other  fish  can  be 
supplied  in  quantity,  if  anybody  happens  to 
want  them. 

Now,  what  all  I  have  said  is  tending  to  is 
exactly  this,  namely,  that  just  as  the  celes 
tial  movements  are  regulated  by  fixed  laws, 
just  as  bodily  monstrosities  are  produced 
according  to  rule,  and  with  as  good  reason  as 
normal  shapes,  so  obliquities  of  character  are 
to  be  accounted  for  on  perfectly  natural  prin 
ciples  ;  they  are  just  as  capable  of  classifica 
tion  as  the  bodily  ones,  and  they  all  diverge 
from  a  certain  average  or  middle  term  which 
is  the  type  of  its  kind. 

If  life  had  been  a  little  longer  I  would 
have  written  a  number  of  essays  for  which, 
as  it  is,  I  cannot  expect  to  have  time.  I 
have  set  down  the  titles  of  a  hundred  or 
more,  and  I  have  often  been  tempted  to  pub 
lish  these,  for  according  to  my  idea,  the  title 
of  a  book  very  often  renders  the  rest  of  it 
unnecessary.  "  Moral  Teratology,"  for  in 
stance,  which  is  marked  No.  67  011  my  list  of 
"  Essays  Potential,  not  Actual,"  suggests  suf 
ficiently  well  what  I  should  be  like  to  say  in 
the  pages  it  would  preface.  People  hold  up 
their  hands  at  a  moral  monster  as  if  there 
was  no  reason  for  his  existence  but  his  own 
choice.  That  was  a  fine  specimen  we  read 


320  THE  POET  AT 

of  in  the  papers  a  few  years  ago,  —  the 
Frenchman,  it  may  be  remembered,  who  used 
to  waylay  and  murder  young  women,  and 
after  appropriating  their  effects,  bury  their 
bodies  in  a  private  cemetery  he  kept  for  that 
purpose.  It  is  very  natural,  and  I  do  not  say 
it  is  not  very  proper,  to  hang  such  eccentric 
persons  as  this  ;  but  it  is  not  clear  whether 
his  vagaries  produce  any  more  sensation  at 
Headquarters  than  the  meek  enterprises  of 
the  mildest  of  city  missionaries.  For  the 
study  of  Moral  Teratology  will  teach  you 
that  you  do  not  get  such  a  malformed  char 
acter  as  that  without  a  long  chain  of  causes 
to  account  for  it ;  and  if  you  only  knew 
those  causes,  you  would  know  perfectly  well 
what  to  expect.  You  may  feel  pretty  sure 
that  our  friend  of  the  private  cemetery  was 
not  the  child  of  pious  and  intelligent  par 
ents  ;  that  he  was  not  nurtured  by  the  best 
of  mothers,  and  educated  by  the  most  judi 
cious  teachers ;  and  that  he  did  not  come 
of  a  lineage  long  known  and  honored  for  its 
intellectual  and  moral  qualities.  Suppose 
that  one  should  go  to  the  worst  quarter  of 
the  city  and  pick  out  the  worst-looking  child 
of  the  worst  couple  he  could  find,  and  then 
train  him  up  successively  at  the  School  for 
Infant  Rogues,  the  Academy  for  Young 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  321 

Scamps,  and  the  College  for  Complete  Crim 
inal  Education,  would  it  be  reasonable  to  ex 
pect  a  Francois  Xavier  or  a  Henry  Martyn 
to  be  the  result  of  such  a  training  ?  The  tra- 
ditionists,  in  whose  presumptuous  hands  the 
science  of  anthropology  has  been  trusted 
from  time  immemorial,  have  insisted  on  elim 
inating  cause  and  effect  from  the  domain  of 
morals.  When  they  have  come  across  a 
moral  monster  they  have  seemed  to  think 
that  he  put  himself  together,  having  a  free 
choice  of  all  the  constituents  which  make  up 
manhood,  and  that  consequently  no  punish 
ment  could  be  too  bad  for  him. 

I  say,  Hang  him  and  welcome,  if  that  is 
the  best  thing  for  society ;  hate  him,  in  a 
certain  sense,  as  you  hate  a  rattlesnake,  but, 
if  you  pretend  to  be  a  philosopher,  recognize 
the  fact  that  what  you  hate  in  him  is  chiefly 
misfortune,  and  that  if  you  had  been  born 
with  his  villanous  low  forehead  and  poisoned 
instincts,  and  bred  among  creatures  of  the 
Ilaces  Maudltes  whose  natural  history  has 
to  be  studied  like  that  of  beasts  of  prey  and 
vermin,  you  would  not  have  been  sitting 
there  in  your  gold-bowed  spectacles  and 
passing  judgment  on  the  peccadilloes  of 
your  fellow-creatures. 

I  have  seen  men  and  women  so  disinter- 


322  THE  POET  AT 

ested  and  noble,  and  devoted  to  the  best 
works,  that  it  appeared  to  me  if  any  good 
and  faithful  servant  was  entitled  to  enter 
into  the  joys  of  his  Lord,  such  as  these 
might  be.  But  I  do  not  know  that  I  ever 
met  with  a  human  being  who  seemed  to  me 
to  have  a  stronger  claim  on  the  pitying  con 
sideration  and  kindness  of  his  Maker  than  a 
wretched,  puny,  crippled,  stunted  child  that 
I  saw  in  Newgate,  who  was  pointed  out  as 
one  of  the  most  notorious  and  inveterate  lit 
tle  thieves  in  London.  I  have  no  doubt 
that  some  of  those  who  were  looking  at  this 
pitiable  morbid  secretion  of  the  diseased  so 
cial  organism  thought  they  were  very  virtu 
ous  for  hating  him  so  heartily. 

It  is  natural,  and  in  one  sense  is  all  right 
enough.  I  want  to  catch  a  thief  and  put  the 
extinguisher  on  an  incendiary  as  much  as  my 
neighbors  do  ;  but  I  have  two  sides  to  my 
consciousness  as  I  have  two  sides  to  my 
heart,  one  carrying  dark,  impure  blood,  and 
the  other  the  bright  stream  which  has  been 
purified  and  vivified  by  the  great  source  of 
life  and  death,  —  the  oxygen  of  the  air 
which  gives  all  things  their  vital  heat,  and 
burns  all  things  at  last  to  ashes. 

One  side  of  me  loves  and  hates  ;  the  other 
side  of  me  judges,  say  rather  pleads  and  sus- 


THE  BEEAKFAST-TABLE.  323 

pends  judgment.  I  think,  if  I  were  left  to 
myself,  I  should  hang  a  rogue  and  then 
write  his  apology  and  subscribe  to  a  neat 
monument,  commemorating,  not  his  virtues, 
but  his  misfortunes.  I  should,  perhaps, 
adorn  the  marble  with  emblems,  as  is  the 
custom  with  regard  to  the  more  regular  and 
normally  constituted  members  of  society.  It 
would  not  be  proper  to  put  the  image  of  a 
lamb  upon  the  stone  which  marked  the  rest 
ing-place  of  him  of  the  private  cemetery. 
But  I  would  not  hesitate  to  place  the  effigy 
of  a  wolf  or  a  hyena  upon  the  monument.  I 
do  not  judge  these  animals,  I  only  kill  them 
or  shut  them  up.  I  presume  they  stand  just 
as  well  with  their  Maker  as  lambs  and  kids, 
and  the  existence  of  such  beings  is  a  perpet 
ual  plea  for  God  Almighty's  poor,  yelling, 
scalping  Indians,  his  weasand  -  stopping 
Thugs,  his  despised  felons,  his  murdering 
miscreants,  and  all  the  unfortunates  whom 
we,  picked  individuals  of  a  picked  class  of 
a  picked  race,  scrubbed,  combed,  and  cate 
chized  from  our  cradles  upward,  undertake 
to  find  accommodations  for  in  another  state 
of  being  where  it  is  to  be  hoped  they  will 
have  a  better  chance  than  they  had  in  this. 

The  Master  paused,  and  took  off  his  great 


324  THE  POET  AT 

round  spectacles.  I  could  not  help  thinking 
that  he  looked  benevolent  enough  to  pardon 
Judas  Iscariot  just  at  that  moment,  though 
his  features  can  knot  themselves  up  pretty 
formidably  on  occasion. 

—  You  are  somewhat  of  a  phrenologist,  I 
judge,  by  the    way  you    talk  of  instinctive 
and  inherited  tendencies,  —  I  said. 

—  They  tell  me  I  ought  to  be, — he  an 
swered,  parrying  my  question,  as  I  thought. 
—  I  have  had  a  famous  chart  made  out  of 
my  cerebral    organs,  according  to    which  I 
ought  to  have  been  —  something  more  than 
a  poor  Magister  Artium. 

—  I  thought  a  shade  of  regret  deepened 
the  lines  on  his  broad,  antique-looking  fore 
head,  and    I    began  talking   about    all   the 
sights  I  had  seen  in  the  way  of  monstrosities, 
of  which  I  had  a  considerable  list,  as  you 
will  see  when  I  tell  you  my  weakness  in  that 
direction.     This,  you   understand,  Beloved, 
is  private  and  confidential. 

I  pay  my  quarter  of  a  dollar  and  go  into 
all  the  side-shows  that  follow  the  caravans 
and  circuses  round  the  country.  I  have 
made  friends  of  all  the  giants  and  all  the 
dwarfs.  I  became  acquainted  with  Monsieur 
Bihin,  le  plus  bel  homme  du  mondc,  and  one 
of  the  biggest,  a  great  many  years  ago,  and 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE,  325 

have  kept  up  my  agreeable  relations  with 
him  ever  since.  He  is  a  most  interesting 
giant,  with  a  softness  o£  voice  and  tenderness 
of  feeling  which  I  find  very  engaging.  I 
was  on  friendly  terms  with  Mr.  Charles 
Freeman,  a  very  superior  giant  of  American 
birth,  seven  feet  four,  I  think,  in  height, 
"  double-jointed,"  of  mylodon  muscularity, 
the  same  who  in  a  British  prize-ring  tossed 
the  Tipton  Slasher  from  one  side  of  the  rope 
to  the  other,  and  now  lies  stretched,  poor 
fellow  !  in  a  mighty  grave  in  the  same  soil 
which  holds  the  sacred  ashes  of  Cribb,  and 
the  honored  dust  of  Burke,  —  not  the  one 
"  commonly  called  the  sublime,"  but  that 
other  Burke  to  whom  Nature  had  denied  the 
sense  of  hearing  lest  he  should  be  spoiled 
by  listening  to  the  praises  of  the  admiring 
circles  which  looked  on  his  dear-bought  tri 
umphs.  Nor  have  I  despised  those  little 
ones  whom  that  devout  worshipper  of  Nature 
in  her  exceptional  forms,  the  distinguished 
Barnum,  has  introduced  to  the  notice  of 
mankind.  The  General  touches  his  chapeau 
to  me,  and  the  Commodore  gives  me  a  sail 
or's  greeting.  I  have  had  confidential  inter 
views  with  the  double-headed  daughter  of 
Africa,  —  so  far,  at  least,  as  her  twofold 
personality  admitted  of  private  confidences. 


326  THE  POET  AT 

I  have  listened  to  the  touching  experiences 
of  the  Bearded  Lad}r,  whose  rough  cheeks 
belie  her  susceptible  heart.  Miss  Jane 
Campbell  has  allowed  me  to  question  her  on 
the  delicate  subject  of  avoirdupois  equiva 
lents  ;  and  the  armless  fair  one,  whose  em 
brace  no  monarch  could  hope  to  win,  has 
wrought  me  a  watch-paper  with  those  de 
spised  digits  which  have  been  degraded  from 
gloves  to  boots  in  our  evolution  from  the 
condition  of  quadrumana. 

I  hope  you  have  read  my  experiences  as 
good-naturedly  as  the  old  Master  listened 
to  them.  He  seemed  to  be  pleased  with  my 
whim,  and  promised  to  go  with  me  to  see  all 
the  side-shows  of  the  next  caravan.  Before 
I  left  him  he  wrote  my  name  in  a  copy  of 
the  new  edition  of  his  book,  telling  me  that 
it  would  not  all  be  new  to  me  by  a  great 
deal,  for  he  often  talked  what  he  had  printed 
to  make  up  for  having  printed  a  good  deal 
of  what  he  had  talked. 

Here  is  the  passage  of  his  Poein  the 
Young  Astronomer  read  to  us. 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  327 


WIND-CLOUDS  AND   STAR-DRIFTS. 

IV. 

From  my  lone  turret  as  I  look  around 
O'er  the  green  meadows  to  the  ring  of  blue, 
From  slope,  from  summit,  and  from  half-hid  vale 
The  sky  is  stabbed  with  dagger-pointed  spires, 
Their  gilded  symbols  whirling  in  the  wind, 
Their  brazen  tongues  proclaiming  to  the  world, 
"  Here  truth  is  sold,  the  only  genuine  ware ; 
See  that  it  has  our  trade-mark  !     You  will  buy 
Poison  instead  of  food  across  the  way, 

The  lies  of  " this  or  that,  each  several  name 

The  standard's  blazon  and  the  battle-cry 

Of  some  true-gospel  faction,  and  again 

The  token  of  the  Beast  to  all  beside. 

And  grouped  round  each  I  see  a  huddling  crowd 

Alike  in  all  things  save  the  words  they  use  ; 

In  love,  in  longing,  hate  and  fear  the  same. 

Whom  do  we  trust  and  serve  ?     We  speak  of 

one 

And  bow  to  many ;  Athens  still  would  find 
The  shrines  of  all  she  worshipped  safe  within 
Our  tall  barbarian  temples,  and  the  thrones 
That  crowned  Olympus  mighty  as  of  old. 
The  god  of  music  rules  the  Sabbath  choir ; 
The  lyric  muse  must  leave  the  sacred  nine 
To  help  us  please  the  dilettante's  ear ; 
Plutus  limps  homeward  with  us,  as  we  leave 


328  THE  POET  AT 

The  portals  of  the  temple  where  we  knelt 
And  listened  while  the  god  of  eloquence 
(Hermes  of  ancient  days,  but  now  disguised 
In  sable  vestments)  with  that  other  god 
Somnus,  the  son  of  Erebus  and  Nox, 
Fights  in  unequal  contest  for  our  souls  ; 
The  dreadful  sovereign  of  the  under  world 
Still  shakes  his  sceptre  at  us,  and  we  hear 
The  baying  of  the  triple-throated  hound ; 
Eros  is  young  as  ever,  and  as  fair 
The  lovely  Goddess  born  of  ocean's  foam. 

These  be  thy  gods,  0  Israel !     Who  is  he, 
The  one  ye  name  and  tell  us  that  ye  serve, 
Whom  ye  would  call  me  from  my  lonely  tower 
To  worship  with  the  many-headed  throng  ? 
Is  it  the  God  that  walked  in  Eden's  grove 
In  the  cool  hour  to  seek  our  guilty  sire  ? 
The  God  who  dealt  with  Abraham  as  the  sons 
Of  that  old  patriarch  deal  with  other  men  ? 
The  jealous  God  of  Moses,  one  who  feels 
An  image  as  an  insult,  and  is  wroth 
With  him  who  made  it  and  his  child  unborn  ? 
The  God  who  plagued  his  people  for  the  sin 
Of  their  adulterous  king,  beloved  of  him,  — 
The  same  who  offers  to  a  chosen  few 
The  right  to  praise  him  in  eternal  song 
While  a  vast  shrieking  \vorld  of  endless  woe 
Blends   its  dread   chorus    with    their   rapturous 

hymn  ? 
Is  this  the  God  ye  mean,  or  is  it  he 


THE  BEEAKFAST-TABLE.  329 

Who  heeds  the  sparrow's  fall,  whose  loving  heart 
Is  as  the  pitying  father's  to  his  child, 
Whose  lesson  to  his  children  is,  "  Forgive," 
Whose  plea  for  all,  "  They  know  not  what  they 
do"? 

I  claim  the  right  of  knowing  whom  I  serve, 
Else  is  my  service  idle  ;  He  that  asks 
My  homage  asks  it  from  a  reasoning  soul. 
To  crawl  is  not  to  worship  ;  we  have  learned 
A  drill  of  eyelids,  bended  neck  and  knee, 
Hanging  our  prayers  on  hinges,  till  we  ape 
The  flexures  of  the  many-jointed  worm. 
Asia  has  taught  her  Allans  and  salaams 
To  the  world's  children,  —  we  have  grown  to  men  ! 
We  who  have  rolled  the  sphere  beneath  our  feet 
To  find  a  virgin  forest,  as  we  lay 
The  beams  of  our  rude  temple,  first  of  all 
Must  frame  its  doorway  high  enough  for  man 
To  pass  unstooping  ;  knowing  as  we  do 
That  He  who  shaped  us  last  of  living  forms 
Has  long  enough  been  served  by  creeping  things. 
Reptiles  that  left  their  foot-prints  in  the  sand 
Of  old  sea-margins  that  have  turned  to  stone, 
And  men  who  learned  their  ritual  ;  we  demand 
To  know  him  first,  then  trust  him  and  then  love 
When  we  have  found  him  worthy  of  our  love. 
Tried  by  our  own  poor  hearts  and  not  before  ; 
He  must  be  truer  than  the  truest  friend, 
He  must  be  tenderer  than  a  woman's  love, 
A  father  better  than  the  best  of  sires  ; 


330  THE  POET  AT 

Kinder  than  she  who  bore  us,  though  we  sin 
Oftener  than  did  the  brother  we  are  told, 
We  —  poor  ill-tempered  mortals  —  must  forgive, 
Though  seven  times  sinning  threescore  times  and 
ten. 

This  is  the  new  world's  gospel :  Be  ye  men  ! 
Try  well  the  legends  of  the  children's  time  ; 
Ye  are  the  chosen  people,  God  has  led 
Your  steps  across  the  desert  of  the  deep 
As  now  across  the  desert  of  the  shore  ; 
Mountains  are  cleft  before  you  as  the  sea 
Before  the  wandering  tribe  of  Israel's  sons  ; 
Still  onward  rolls  the  thunderous  caravan, 
Its  coming  printed  on  the  western  sky, 
A  cloud  by  day,  by  night  a  pillared  flame  ; 
Your  prophets  are  a  hundred  unto  one 
Of  them  of  old  who  cried,  "  Thus  saith  the  Lord  "  ; 
They  told  of  cities  that  should  fall  in  heaps, 
But  yours  of  mightier  cities  that  shall  rise 
Where  yet  the  lonely  fishers  spread  their  nets, 
Where  hides  the  fox  and  hoots  the  midnight  owl ; 
The  tree  of  knowledge  in  your  garden  grows 
Not  single,  but  at  every  humble  door ; 
Its  branches  lend  you  their  immortal  food, 
That  fills  you  with  the  sense  of  what  ye  are, 
No  servants  of  an  altar  hewed  and  carved 
From  senseless  stone  by  craft  of  human  hands, 
Rabbi,  or  dervish,  brahmin,  bishop,  bonze, 
But  masters  of  the  charm  with  which  they  work 
To  keep  your  hands  from  that  forbidden  tree  ! 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  331 

Ye  that  have  tasted  that  divinest  fruit, 
Look  on  this  world  of  yours  with  opened  eyes ! 
Ye  are  as  gods  !     Nay,,  makers  of  your  gods,  — 
Each  day  ye  break  an  image  in  your  shrine 
And  plant  a  fairer  image  where  it  stood  : 
Where  is  the  Moloch  of  your  fathers'  creed, 
Whose  fires  of   torment  burned  for  span  -  long 

babes  ? 

Fit  object  for  a  tender  mother's  love ! 
Why  not?     It  was  a  bargain  duly  made 
For  these  same  infants  through  the  surety's  act 
Intrusted  with  their  all  for  earth  and  heaven, 
By  Him  who  chose  their  guardian,  knowing  well 
His  fitness  for  the  task,  —  this,  even  this, 
Was  the  true  doctrine  only  yesterday 
As  thoughts  are  reckoned,  —  and  to-day  you  hear 
In  words  that  sound  as  if  from  human  tongues 
Those  monstrous,  uncouth  horrors  of  the  past 
That  blot  the  blue  of  heaven  and  shame  the  earth 
As  would  the  saurians  of  the  age  of  slime, 
Awaking  from  their  stony  sepulchres 
And  wallowing  hateful  in  the  eye  of  day ! 

Four  of  us  listened  to  these  lines  as  the 
young  man  read  them,  —  the  Master  and  my 
self  and  our  two  ladies.  This  was  the  little 
party  we  got  up  to  hear  him  read.  I  do  not 
think  much  of  it  was  very  new  to  the  Master 
or  myself.  At  any  rate,  he  said  to  me  when 
we  were  alone,  — 

That   is   the  kind   of   talk  the  "  natural 


332  THE  POET  AT 

man,"  as  the  theologians  call  him,  is  apt  to 
fall  into. 

—  I  thought  it  was  the  Apostle  Paul,  and 
not  the  theologians,  that  used  the  term  "  nat 
ural  man,"    —  I  ventured  to  suggest. 

—  I  should  like  to  know  where  the  Apos 
tle  Paul  learned  English  ?  —  said  the  Master, 
with  the  look  of  one  who  does  not  mean  to 
be  tripped  up  if  he  can  help  himself.  —  But 
at  any  rate,  —  he  continued,  —  the  "  natural 
man,"  so  called,  is  worth  listening  to  now 
and   then,  for  he   did  n't  make  his  nature, 
and  the  Devil  did  n't  make  it ;   and  if  the 
Almighty  made  it,  I  never  saw  or  heard  of 
anything  he  made  that  was  n't  worth  attend 
ing  to. 

The  young  man  begged  the  Lady  to  par 
don  anything  that  might  sound  harshly  in 
these  crude  thoughts  of  his.  He  had  been 
taught  strange  things,  he  said,  from  old  the 
ologies,  when  he  was  a  child,  and  had  thought 
his  way  out  of  many  of  his  early  supersti 
tions.  As  for  the  Young  Girl,  our  Schehe- 
rezade,  he  said  to  her  that  she  must  have  got 
dreadfully  tired  (at  which  she  colored  up  and 
said  it  was  no  such  thing),  and  he  promised 
that,  to  pay  for  her  goodness  in  listening,  he 
would  give  her  a  lesson  in  astronomy  the 
next  fair  evening,  if  she  would  be  his  scholar, 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  333 

at  which  she  blushed  deeper  than  before,  and 
said  something  which  certainly  was  not  No. 


IX. 

There  was  no  sooner  a  vacancy  on  our  side 
of  the  table,  than  the  Master  proposed  a 
change  of  seats  which  would  bring  the 
Young  Astronomer  into  our  immediate  neigh 
borhood.  The  Scarabee  was  to  move  into 
the  place  of  our  late  unlamented  associate, 
the  Man  of  Letters,  so  called.  I  was  to 
take  his  place,  the  Master  to  take  mine,  and 
the  young  man  that  which  had  been  occu 
pied  by  the  Master.  The  advantages  of  this 
change  were  obvious.  The  old  Master  likes 
an  audience,  plainly  enough  ;  and  with  my 
self  on  one  side  of  him,  and  the  young  stu 
dent  of  science,  whose  speculative  turn  is 
sufficiently  shown  in  the  passages  from  his 
poem,  on  the  other  side,  he  may  feel  quite 
sure  of  being  listened  to.  There  is  only  one 
trouble  in  the  arrangement,  and  that  is  that 
it  brings  this  young  man  not  only  close  to 
us,  but  also  next  to  our  Scheherezade. 

I  am  obliged  to  confess  that  he  has  shown 
occasional  marks  of  inattention  even  while 
the  Master  was  discoursing  in  a  way  that  I 
found  agreeable  enough.  I  am  quite  sure  it 


334  TEE  POET  AT 

is  no  intentional  disrespect  to  the  old  Mas- 
ter.  It  seems  to  me  rather  that  he  has  be 
come  interested  in  the  astronomical  lessons 
he  has  been  giving  the  Young  Girl.  He  has 
studied  so  much  alone,  that  it  is  naturally  a 
pleasure  to  him  to  impart  some  of  his  knowl 
edge.  As  for  his  young  pupil,  she  has  often 
thought  of  being  a  teacher  herself,  so  that 
she  is  of  course  very  glad  to  acquire  any  ac 
complishment  that  may  be  useful  to  her  in 
that  capacity.  I  do  not  see  any  reason  why 
some  of  the  boarders  should  have  made  such 
remarks  as  they  have  done.  One  cannot 
teach  astronomy  to  advantage,  without  going- 
out  of  doors,  though  I  confess  that  when  two 
young  people  go  out  ~by  daylight  to  study  the 
stars,  as  these  young  folks  have  done  once 
or  twice,  I  do  not  so  much  wonder  at  a  re 
mark  or  suggestion  from  those  who  have  noth 
ing  better  to  do  than  study  their  neighbors. 

I  ought  to  have  told  the  reader  before  this 
that  I  found,  as  I  suspected,  that  our  inno 
cent-looking  Scheherezade  was  at  the  bottom 
of  the  popgun  business.  I  watched  her  very 
closely,  and  one  day,  when  the  little  monkey 
made  us  all  laugh  by  stopping  the  Member 
of  the  Haouse  in  the  middle  of  a  speech  he 
was  repeating  to  us,  —  it  was  his  great  effort 
of  the  season  on  a  bill  for  the  protection  of 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  335 

horn-pout  in  Little  Muddy  River,  — I  caught 
her  making  the  signs  that  set  him  going.  At 
a  slight  tap  of  her  knife  against  her  plate,  he 
got  all  ready,  and  presently  I  saw  her  cross 
her  knife  and  fork  upon  her  plate,  and  as 
she  did  so,  pop  !  went  the  small  piece  of  artil 
lery.  The  Member  of  the  Haouse  was  just 
saying  that  this  bill  hit  his  constitooents  in 
their  most  vital  —  when  a  pellet  hit  him  in 
the  feature  of  his  countenance  most  exposed 
to  aggressions  and  least  tolerant  of  liberties. 
The  Member  resented  this  unparliamentary 
treatment  by  jumping  up  from  his  chair  and 
giving  the  small  aggressor  a  good  shaking, 
at  the  same  time  seizing  the  implement  which 
had  caused  his  wrath  and  breaking  it  into 
splinters.  The  Boy  blubbered,  the  Young 
Girl  changed  color,  and  looked  as  if  she 
would  cry,  and  that  was  the  last  of  these 
interruptions. 

I  must  own  that  I  have  sometimes  wished 
we  had  the  popgun  back,  for  it  answered  all 
the  purpose  of  u  the  previous  question  "  in  a 
deliberative  assembly.  No  doubt  the  Young 
Girl  was  capricious  in  setting  the  little  en 
gine  at  work,  but  she  cut  short  a  good  many 
disquisitions  that  threatened  to  be  tedious. 
I  find  myself  often  wishing  for  her  and  her 
small  fellow  -  conspirator's  intervention,  in 


336  THE  POET  AT 

company  where  I  am  supposed  to  be  enjoy 
ing  myself.  When  my  friend  the  politician 
gets  too  far  into  the  personal  details  of  the 
quorum  pars  magnafui,  I  find  myself  all  at 
once  exclaiming  in  mental  articulation,  Pop 
gun  !  When  my  friend  the  story-teller  be 
gins  that  protracted  narrative  which  has  of 
ten  emptied  me  of  all  my  voluntary  laughter 
for  the  evening,  he  has  got  but  a  very  little 
way  when  I  say  to  myself,  What  would  n't  I 
give  for  a  pellet  from  that  popgun  !  In  short, 
so  useful  has  that  trivial  implement  proved 
as  a  jaw-stopper  and  a  boricide,  that  I  never 
go  to  a  club  or  a  dinner-party,  without  wish 
ing  the  company  included  our  Scheherezade 
and  That  Boy  with  his  popgun. 

How  clearly  I  see  now  into  the  mechanism 
of  the  Young  Girl's  audacious  contrivance 
for  regulating  our  table-talk !  Her  brain  is 
tired  half  the  time,  and  she  is  too  nervous 
to  listen  patiently  to  what  a  quieter  person 
would  like  well  enough,  or  at  least  would  not 
be  annoyed  by.  It  amused  her  to  invent  a 
scheme  for  managing  the  headstrong  talkers, 
and  also  let  off  a  certain  spirit  of  mischief 
which  in  some  of  these  nervous  girls  shows 
itself  in  much  more  questionable  forms. 
How  cunning  these  half -hysteric  young  per 
sons  are,  to  be  sure !  I  had  to  watch  a  long 


THE  BEEAKFAST-TABLE.  337 

time  before  I  detected  the  telegraphic  com 
munication  between  the  two  conspirators.  I 
have  no  doubt  she  had  sedulously  schooled 
the  little  monkey  to  his  business,  and  found 
great  delight  in  the  task  of  instruction. 

But  now  that  our  Scheherezade  has  become 
a  scholar  instead  of  a  teacher,  she  seems  to 
be  undergoing  a  remarkable  transformation. 
Astronomy  is  indeed  a  noble  science.  It 
may  well  kindle  the  enthusiasm  of  a  youth 
ful  nature.  I  fancy  at  times  that  I  see  some 
thing  of  that  starry  light  which  I  noticed  in 
the  young  man's  eyes  gradually  kindling  in 
hers.  But  can  it  be  astronomy  alone  that 
does  it?  Her  color  comes  and  goes  more 
readily  than  when  the  old  Master  sat  next 
her  on  the  left.  It  is  having  this  young  man 
at  her  side,  I  suppose.  Of  course  it  is.  I 
watch  her  with  great,  I  may  say  tender  in 
terest.  If  he  would  only  fall  in  love  with 
her,  seize  upon  her  wandering  affections  and 
fancies  as  the  Romans  seized  the  Sabine  vir 
gins,  lift  her  out  of  herself  and  her  listless 
and  weary  drudgeries,  stop  the  outflow  of 
this  young  life  which  is  draining  itself  away 
in  forced  literary  labor  —  dear  me,  dear  me 
-if,  if,  if  - 

"  If  I  were  God 
An'  ye  were  Martin  Elginbrod  !  " 


338  THE  POET  AT 

I  am  afraid  all  this  may  never  be.  I  fear  that 
he  is  too  much  given  to  lonely  study,  to  self- 
companionship,  to  all  sorts  of  questionings, 
to  looking  at  life  as  at  a  solemn  show  where 
he  is  only  a  spectator.  I  dare  not  build  up 
a  romance  on  what  I  have  yet  seen.  My 
reader  may,  but  I  will  answer  for  nothing.  I 
shall  wait  and  see. 

The  old  Master  and  I  have  at  last  made 
that  visit  to  the  Scarabee  which  we  had  so 
long  promised  ourselves. 

When  we  knocked  at  his  door  he  came  and 
opened  it,  instead  of  saying,  Come  in.  He 
was  surprised,  I  have  no  doubt,  at  the  sound 
of  our  footsteps ;  for  he  rarely  has  a  visitor, 
except  the  little  monkey  of  a  boy,  and  he  may 
have  thought  a  troop  of  marauders  were  com 
ing  to  rob  him  of  his  treasures.  Collectors 
feel  so  rich  in  the  possession  of  their  rarer 
specimens,  that  they  forget  how  cheap  their 
precious  things  seem  to  common  eyes,  and 
are  as  afraid  of  being  robbed  as  if  they  were 
dealers  in  diamonds.  They  have  the  name 
of  stealing  from  each  other  now  and  then,  it 
is  true,  but  many  of  their  priceless  posses 
sions  would  hardly  tempt  a  beggar.  Values 
are  artificial :  you  will  not  be  able  to  get  ten 
cents  of  the  year  1799  for  a  dime. 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  339 

The  Scarabee  was  reassured  as  soon  as  he 
saw  our  faces,  and  he  welcomed  us  not  un 
graciously  into  his  small  apartment.  It  was 
hard  to  find  a  place  to  sit  down,  for  all  the 
chairs  were  already  occupied  by  cases  and 
boxes  full  of  his  favorites.  I  began,  there 
fore,  looking  round  the  room.  Bugs  of  every 
size  and  aspect  met  my  eyes  wherever  they 
turned.  I  felt  for  the  moment  as  I  suppose 
a  man  may  feel  in  a  fit  of  delirium  tremens. 
Presently  my  attention  was  drawn  towards  a 
very  odd-looking  insect  on  the  mantel-piece. 
This  animal  was  incessantly  raising  its  arms 
as  if  towards  heaven  and  clasping  them  to 
gether,  as  though  it  were  wrestling  in  prayer. 

Do  look  at  this  creature,  —  I  said  to  the 
Master,  —  he  seems  to  be  very  hard  at  work 
at  his  devotions. 

Mantis  religiosa,  —  said  the  Master,  —  I 
know  the  praying  rogue.  Mighty  devout 
and  mighty  cruel ;  crushes  everything  he 
can  master,  or  impales  it  on  his  spiny  shanks 
and  feeds  upon  it,  like  a  gluttonous  wretch  as 
he  is.  I  have  seen  the  Mantis  religiosa  on  a 
larger  scale  than  this,  now  and  then.  A  sa 
cred  insect,  sir,  —  sacred  to  many  tribes  of 
men  ;  to  the  Hottentots,  to  the  Turks,  yes, 
sir,  and  to  the  Frenchmen,  who  call  the  ras 
cal  prie  dieu,  and  believe  him  to  have  spe- 


340  THE  POET  AT 

cial  charge  of  children  that  have  lost  their 
way.  Does  n't  it  seem  as  if  there  was  a  vein 
of  satire  as  well  as  of  fun  that  ran  through 
the  solemn  manifestations  of  creative  wis 
dom  ?  And  of  deception  too  —  do  you  see 
how  nearly  those  dried  leaves  resemble  an 
insect  ? 

They  do,  indeed,  —  I  answered,  —  but  not 
so  closely  as  to  deceive  me.  They  remind 
me  of  an  insect,  but  I  could  not  mistake 
them  for  one. 

—  O,  you  could  n't  mistake  those  dried 
leaves  for  an  insect,  hey  ?  Well,  how  can 
you  mistake  that  insect  for  dried  leaves? 
That  is  the  question ;  for  insect  it  is,  — 
phyllum  siccifolium,  the  "  walking  leaf,"  as 
some  have  called  it.  —  The  Master  had  a 
hearty  laugh  at  my  expense. 

The  Scarabee  did  not  seem  to  be  amused 
at  the  Master's  remarks  or  at  my  blunder. 
Science  is  always  perfectly  serious  to  him  ; 
and  he  would  no  more  laugh  over  anything 
connected  with  his  study,  than  a  clergyman 
would  laugh  at  a  funeral. 

They  send  me  all  sorts  of  trumpery,  —  he 
said,  —  Orthoptera  and  Lepidoptera  ;  as  if 
a  coleopterist  —  a  scarabeeist  —  cared  for 
such  things.  This  business  is  110  boy's  play 
to  me.  The  insect  population  of  the  world 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  341 

is  not  even  catalogued  yet,  and  a  lifetime 
given  to  the  scarabees  is  a  small  contribution 
enough  to  their  study.  I  like  your  men  of 
general  intelligence  well  enough,  —  your 
Linnaeuses  and  your  Buffons  and  your  Cu- 
viers  ;  but  Cuvier  had  to  go  to  Latreille  for 
his  insects,  and  if  Latreille  had  been  able 
to  consult  me,  —  yes,  me,  gentlemen  !  —  he 
would  n't  have  made  the  blunders  he  did 
about  some  of  the  coleoptera. 

The  old  Master,  as  I  think  you  must 
have  found  out  by  this  time,  — you,  Beloved, 
I  mean,  who  read  every  word,  —  has  a  rea 
sonably  good  opinion,  as  perhaps  he  has  a 
right  to  have,  of  his  own  intelligence  and  ac 
quirements.  The  Scarabee's  exultation  and 
glow  as  he  spoke  of  the  errors  of  the  great 
entomologist  which  he  himself  could  have 
corrected,  had  the  effect  on  the  old  Master 
whiuh  a  lusty  crow  has  upon  the  feathered 
champion  of  the  neighboring  barnyard.  He 
too  knew  something  about  insects.  Had  he 
not  discovered  a  new  tabanus  ?  Had  he  not 
made  preparations  of  the  very  coleoptera  the 
Scarabee  studied  so  exclusively,  —  prepara 
tions  which  the  illustrious  Swammerdam 
would  not  have  been  ashamed  of,  and  dis 
sected  a  melolontha  as  exquisitely  as  Strauss 
Durckheim  himself  ever  did  it?  So  the 


34£  THE  POET  AT 

Master,  recalling  these  studies  of  his  and 
certain  difficult  and  disputed  points  at  which 
he  had  labored  in  one  of  his  entomological 
paroxysms,  put  a  question  which  there  can 
be  little  doubt  was  intended  to  puzzle  the 
Scarabee,  and  perhaps,  —  for  the  best  of  us 
is  human  (I  am  beginning  to  love  the  old 
Master,  but  he  has  his  little  weaknesses, 
thank  Heaven,  like  the  rest  of  us),  —  I  say 
perhaps,  wras  meant  to  show  that  some  folks 
knew  as  much  about  some  things  as  some 
other  folks. 

The  little  dried-up  specialist  did  not  dilate 
into  fighting  dimensions  as  — perhaps^  again 
—  the  Master  may  have  thought  he  would. 
He  looked  a  mild  surprise,  but  remained  as 
quiet  as  one  of  his  own  beetles  when  you 
touch  him  and  he  makes  believe  he  is  dead. 
The  blank  silence  became  oppressive.  Was 
the  Scarabee  crushed,  as  so  many  of  his 
namesakes  are  crushed,  under  the  heel  of 
this  trampling  omniscient  > 

At  last  the  Scarabee  creaked  out  very 
slowly,  "Did  I  understand  you  to  ask  the 
following  question,  to  wit  ?  "  and  so  forth  ; 
for  I  was  quite  out  of  my  depth,  and  only 
know  that  he  repeated  the  Master's  some 
what  complex  inquiry,  word  for  word. 

—  That  was  exactly  my  question,  —  said 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  343 

the  Master.  —  and  I  hope  it  is  not  uncivil  to 
ask  one  which  seems  to  me  to  be  a  puzzler. 

Not  uncivil  in  the  least,  —  said  the  Scara- 
bee,  with  something  as  much  like  a  look  of 
triumph  as  his  dry  face  permitted,  —  not  un 
civil  at  all,  but  a  rather  extraordinary  ques 
tion  to  ask  at  this  date  of  entomological  his 
tory.  I  settled  that  question  some  years 
ago,  by  a  series  of  dissections,  six-and-thirty 
in  number,  reported  in  an  essay  I  can  show 
you  and  would  give  you  a  copy  of,  but  that 
I  am  a  little  restricted  in  my  revenue,  and 
our  Society  has  to  be  economical,  so  I  have 
but  this  one.  You  see,  sir,  —  and  he  went 
on  with  elytra  and  antennae  and  tarsi  and 
metatarsi  and  tracheae  and  stomata  and  wins:- 

O 

muscles  and  leg-muscles  and  ganglions,  — 
all  plain  enough,  I  do  not  doubt,  to  those 
accustomed  to  handling  dor-bugs  and  squash- 
bugs  and  such  undesirable  objects  of  affec 
tion  to  all  but  naturalists. 

He  paused  when  he  got  through,  not  for 
an  answer,  for  there  evidently  was  none,  but 
to  see  how  the  Master  would  take  it.  The 
Scarabee  had  had  it  all  his  own  way. 

The  Master  was  loyal  to  his  own  generous 
nature.  He  felt  as  a  peaceful  citizen  might 
feel  who  had  squared  off  at  a  stranger  for 
some  supposed  wrong,  and  suddenly  discov- 


344  THE  POET  AT 

ered  that  he  was  undertaking  to  chastise 
Mr.  Dick  Curtis,  u  the  pet  of  the  Fancy," 
or  Mr.  Joshua  Hudson,  "  the  John  Bull 
fighter." 

lie  felt  the  absurdity  of  his  discomfiture, 
for  he  turned  to  me  good-naturedly,  and 
said, — 

"  Poor  Johnny  Raw  !  What  madness  could  impel 
So  rum  a  flat  to  face  so  prime  a  swell  ?  " 

To  tell  the  truth,  I  rather  think  the  Mas 
ter  enjoyed  his  own  defeat.  The  Scarabee 
had  a  right  to  his  victory  ;  a  man  does  not 
give  his  life  to  the  study  of  a  single  limited 
subject  for  nothing,  and  the  moment  we 
come  across  a  first-class  expert  we  begin  to 
take  a  pride  in  his  superiority.  It  cannot 
offend  us,  who  have  no  right  at  all  to  be  his 
match  on  his  own  ground.  Besides,  there  is 
a  very  curious  sense  of  satisfaction  in  getting 
a  fair  chance  to  sneer  at  ourselves  and  scoff 
at  our  own  pretensions.  The  first  person 
of  our  dual  consciousness  has  been  smirking 
and  rubbing  his  hands  and  felicitating  him 
self  on  his  innumerable  superiorities,  until 
we  have  grown  a  little  tired  of  him.  Then, 
when  the  other  fellow,  the  critic,  the  cynic, 
the  Shimei,  who  has  been  quiet,  letting  self- 
love  and  self-glorification  have  their  perfect 
work,  opens  fire  upon  the  first  half  of  our 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  345 

personality  and  overwhelms  it  with  that 
wonderful  vocabulary  of  abuse  of  which  he 
is  the  unrivalled  master,  there  is  no  denying 
that  he  enjoys  it  immensely  ;  and  as  he  is 
ourself  for  the  moment,  or  at  least  the  chief 
portion  of  ourself  (the  other  half-self  retir 
ing  into  a  dim  corner  of  semiconsciousness 
and  cowering  under  the  storm  of  sneers  and 
contumely,  —  you  follow  me  perfectly,  Be 
loved,  —  the  way  is  as  plain  as  the  path  of 
the  babe  to  the  maternal  fount),  as,  I  say, 
the  abusive  fellow  is  the  chief  part  of  us  for 
the  time,  and  he  likes  to  exercise  his  slan 
derous  vocabulary,  we  on  the  whole  enjoy 
a  brief  season  of  self -depreciation  and  self- 
scolding  very  heartily. 

It  is  quite  certain  that  both  of  us,  the 
Master  and  myself,  conceived  on  the  instant 
a  respect  for  the  Scarabee  which  we  had  not 
before  felt.  He  had  grappled  with  one  diffi 
culty  at  any  rate  and  mastered  it.  He  had 
settled  one  thing,  at  least,  so  it  appeared,  in 
such  a  way  that  it  was  not  to  be  brought  up 
again.  And  now  he  was  determined,  if  it 
cost  him  the  effort  of  all  his  remaining  days, 
to  close  another  discussion  and  put  forever 
to  rest  the  anxious  doubts  about  the  larva  of 
meloe. 


346  THE  POET  AT 

-Your  thirty-six  dissections  must  have 
cost  you  a  deal  of  time  and  labor,  — .  the 
Master  said. 

—  What  have  I  to  do  with  time,  but  to 
fill  it  up  with  labor  ?  —  answered  the  Scara- 
bee.  —  It  is  my  meat  and  drink  to  work  over 
my  beetles.     My  holidays  are  when  I  get  a 
rare  specimen.     My  rest  is  to  watch  the  hab 
its  of  insects,  —  those  that  I  do  not  pretend 
to  study.     Here  is  my  muscarium,  my  home 
for  house-flies  ;  very  interesting    creatures  ; 
here  they  breed  and  buzz  and  feed  and  enjoy 
themselves,  and  die  in  a  good  old  age  of  a 
few    months.     My  favorite    insect   lives    in 
this  other  case ;  she  is  at  home,  but  in  her 
private-chamber  ;  you  shall  see  her. 

He  tapped  on  the  glass  lightly,  and  a 
large,  gray,  hairy  spider  came  forth  from 
the  hollow  of  a  funnel-like  web. 

—  And  this  is  all  the  friend  you  have  to 
love  ?  —  said  the  Master,  with  a  tenderness 
in  his  voice  which  made  the  question  very 
significant. 

—  Nothing  else  loves  me  better  than  she 
does,  that  I  know  of,  —  he  answered. 

-  To  think  of  it !  Not  even  a  dog  to 
lick  his  hand,  or  a  cat  to  purr  and  rub  her 
fur  against  him  !  O,  these  boarding-houses, 
these  boarding-houses  !  What  forlorn  peo- 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  347 

pie  one  sees  stranded  on  their  desolate 
shores !  Decayed  gentlewomen  with  the 
poor  wrecks  of  what  once  made  their  house 
holds  beautiful,  disposed  around  them  in 
narrow  chambers  as  they  best  may  be,  com 
ing  down  day  after  day,  poor  souls  !  to  sit  at 
the  board  with  strangers  ;  their  hearts  full 
of  sad  memories  which  have  no  language 
but  a  sigh,  no  record  but  the  lines  of  sorrow 
on  their  features  ;  orphans,  creatures  with 
growing  tendrils  and  nothing  to  cling  to  ; 
lonely  rich  men,  casting  about  them  what  to 
do  with  the  wealth  they  never  knew  how  to 
enjoy,  when  they  shall  no  longer  worry  over 
keeping  and  increasing  it ;  young  men  and 
young  women,  left  to  their  instincts,  un 
guarded,  unwatched,  save  by  malicious  eyes, 
which  are  sure  to  be  found  and  to  find  oc 
cupation  in  these  miscellaneous  collections 
of  human  beings  ;  and  now  and  then  a  shred 
of  humanity  like  this  little  adust  specialist, 
with  just  the  resources  needed  to  keep  the 
"  radical  moisture  "  from  entirely  exhaling 
from  his  attenuated  organism,  and  busying 
himself  over  a  point  of  science,  or  compiling 
a  hymn-book,  or  editing  a  grammar  or  a  dic 
tionary  ;  —  such  are  the  tenants  of  boarding- 
houses  whom  we  cannot  think  of  without 
feeling  how  sad  it  is  when  the  wind  is  net 


348  THE  POET  AT 

tempered  to  the  shorn  lamb  ;  when  the  soli 
tary,  whose  hearts  are  shrivelling,  are  not 
set  in  families ! 

The  Master  was  greatly  interested  in  the 
Scarabee's  Muscarium. 

-  I  don't  remember,  — he  said,  —  that  I 
have  heard  of  such  a  thing  as  that  before. 
Mighty  curious  creatures,  these  same  house- 
flies  !  Talk  about  miracles !  Was  there 
ever  anything  more  miraculous,  so  far  as  our 
common  observation  goes,  than  the  coming 
and  the  going  of  these  creatures?  Why 
didn't  Job  ask  where  the  flies  come  from 
and  where  they  go  to  ?  I  did  not  say  that 
you  and  I  don't  know,  but  how  many  people 
do  know  anything  about  it  ?  Where  are  the 
cradles  of  the  young  flies  ?  Where  are  the 
cemeteries  of  the  dead  ones,  or  do  they  die 
at  all  except  when  we  kill  them?  You 
think  all  the  flies  of  the  year  are  dead  and 
gone,  and  there  comes  a  warm  day  and  all 
at  once  there  is  a  general  resurrection  of 
'em  ;  they  had  been  taking  a  nap,  that  is  all. 

—  I  suppose  you  do  not  trust  your  spider 
in  the  Muscarium  ?  —  said  I,  addressing  the 
Scarabee. 

—  Not  exactly,  —  he    answered,  —  she  is 
a  terrible  creature.     She  loves  me,  I  think, 
but  she  is  a  killer  and   a  cannibal   among 


THE  BEEAKFAST-TABLE.  34!) 

other  insects.  I  wanted  to  pair  her  with  a 
male  spider,  but  it  would  n't  do. 

—  Wouldn't  do?  —  said   I,  —  why  not? 
Don't  spiders  have  their  mates   as  well   as 
other  folks? 

—  O  yes,  sometimes  ;  but  the  females  are 
apt  to  be  particular,  and  if  they  don't  like 
the  mate  you  offer  them  they  fall  upon  him 
and  kill  him  and  eat  him  up.     You  see  they 
are  a  great  deal  bigger  and  stronger  than 
the  males,  and  they  are  always  hungry  and 
not  always  particularly  anxious  to  have  one 
of  the  other  sex  bothering  round. 

—  Woman's  rights  !  —  said  I,  —  there  you 
have    it!     Why  don't  those   talking  ladies 
take  a  spider  as  their  emblem  ?     Let  them 
form  arachnoid  associations,  —  spinsters  and 
spiders  would  be  a  good  motto. 

—  The  Master  smiled.     I  think  it  was  an 
eleemosynary  smile,  for  my  pleasantry  seems 
to  me  a  particularly  basso  rilievo,  as  I  look 
upon  it  in  cold  blood.     But  conversation  at 
the  best  is  only  a  thin  sprinkling  of  occa 
sional  felicities  set  in  platitudes  and  common 
places.     I  never  heard  people  talk  like  the 
characters  in  the  "  School  for  Scandal," 

I  should  very  much  like  to.  —  I  say  the 
Master  smiled.  But  the  Scarabee  did  not 
relax  a  muscle  of  his  countenance. 


350  THE  POET  AT 

—  There  are  persons  whom  the  very  mild 
est  of  facetice  sets  off  into  such  convulsions 
of  laughter,  that  one  is  afraid  lest  they  should 
injure  themselves.  Even  when  a  jest  misses 
fire  completely,  so  that  it  is  no  jest  at  all,  but 
only  a  jocular  intention,  they  laugh  just  as 
heartily.  Leave  out  the  point  of  your  story, 
get  the  word  wrong  on  the  duplicity  of  which 
the  pun  that  was  to  excite  hilarity  depended, 
and  they  still  honor  your  abortive  attempt 
with  the  most  lusty  and  vociferous  merri 
ment. 

There  is  a  very  opposite  class  of  persons 
whom  anything  in  the  nature  of  a  joke  per 
plexes,  troubles,  and  even  sometimes  irritates, 
seeming  to  make  them  think  they  are  trifled 
with,  if  not  insulted.  If  you  are  fortunate 
enough  to  set  the  whole  table  laughing,  one 
of  this  class  of  persons  will  look  inquiringly 
round,  as  if  something  had  happened,  and, 
seeing  everybody  apparently  amused  but  him 
self,  feel  as  if  he  was  being  laughed  at,  or  at 
any  rate  as  if  something  had  been  said  which 
he  was  not  to  hear.  Often,  however,  it  does 
not  go  so  far  as  this,  and  there  is  nothing 
more  than  mere  insensibility  to  the  cause  of 
other  people's  laughter,  a  sort  of  joke-blind 
ness,  comparable  to  the  well-known  color 
blindness  with  which  many  persons  are  af 
flicted  as  a  congenital  incapacity. 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  351 

I  have  never  seen  the  Scarabee  smile.  I 
have  seen  him  take  off  his  goggles,  —  he 
breakfasts  in  these  occasionally,  —  I  suppose 
when  he  has  been  tiring  his  poor  old  eyes  out 
over  night  gazing  through  his  microscope,  — 
I  have  seen  him  take  his  goggles  off,  I  say, 
and  stare  about  him,  when  the  rest  of  us 
were  laughing  at  something  which  amused  us, 
but  his  features  betrayed  nothing  more  than 
a  certain  bewilderment,  as  if  we  had  been 
foreigners  talking  in  an  unknown  tongue.  I 
do  not  think  it  was  a  mere  fancy  of  mine  that 
he  bears  a  kind  of  resemblance  to  the  tribe 
of  insects  he  gives  his  life  to  studying.  His 
shiny  black  coat ;  his  rounded  back,  convex 
with  years  of  stooping  over  his  minute  work  ; 
his  angular  movements,  made  natural  to  him 
by  his  habitual  style  of  manipulation  ;  the 
aridity  of  his  organism,  with  which  his  voice 
is  in  perfect  keeping ;  —  all  these  marks  of 
his  special  sedentary  occupation  are  so  nearly 
what  might  be  expected,  and  indeed  so  much 
in  accordance  with  the  more  general  fact  that 
a  man's  aspect  is  subdued  to  the  look  of  what 
he  works  in,  that  I  do  not  feel  disposed  to 
accuse  myself  of  exaggeration  in  my  account 
of  the  Scarabee's  appearance.  But  I  think 
he  has  learned  something  else  of  his  coleopter 
ous  friends.  The  beetles  never  smile.  Their 


352  THE  POET  AT 

physiognomy  is  not  adapted  to  the  display  of 
the  emotions  ;  the  lateral  movement  of  their 
jaws  being*  effective  for  alimentary  purposes, 
but  very  limited  in  its  gamut  of  expression. 
It  is  with  these  unemotional  beings  that  the 
Scarabee  passes  his  life.  He  has  but  one  ob 
ject,  and  that  is  perfectly  serious,  to  his  mind, 
in  fact,  of  absorbing  interest  and  importance. 
In  one  aspect  of  the  matter  he  is  quite  right, 
for  if  the  Creator  has  taken  the  trouble  to 
make  one  of  his  creatures  in  just  such  a  way 
and  not  otherwise,  from  the  beginning  of  its 
existence  on  our  planet  in  ages  of  unknown 
remoteness  to  the  present  time,  the  man  who 
first  explains  His  idea  to  us  is  charged  with 
a  revelation.  It  is  by  no  means  impossible 
that  there  may  be  angels  in  the  celestial  hie  • 
rarchy  to  whom  it  would  be  new  and  interest 
ing.  I  have  often  thought  that  spirits  of  a 
higher  order  than  man  might  be  willing  to 
learn  something  from  a  human  mind  like  that 
of  Newton,  and  I  see  no  reason  why  an  angelic 
being1  might  not  be  glad  to  hear  a  lecture 

O  O  c) 

from  M  •.  Huxley,  or  Mr.  Tyndall,  or  one  of 
our  friends  at  Cambridge. 

I  have  been  sinuous  as  the  Links  of  Forth 
seen  from  Stirling  Castle,  or  as  that  other 
river  which  threads  the  Berkshire  valley  and 
runs,  a  perennial  stream,  through  my  mem- 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  353 

ory,  —  from  which  I  please  myself  with  think- 
in"*  that  I  have  learned  to  wind  without  fret- 

o 

ting  against  the  shore,  or  forgetting  where  I 
am  flowing,  —  sinuous,  I  say,  but  not  jerky, 
—  no,  not  jerky  nor  hard  to  follow  for  a- 
reader  of  the  right  sort,  in  the  prime  of  life 
and  full  possession  of  his  or  her  faculties. 

—  All  this  last  page  or  so,  you   readily 
understand,  has  been  my  private  talk  with 
you,  the  Reader.    The  cue  of  the  conversation 
which  I  interrupted  by  this  digression  is  to 
be  found  in  the  words  "  a  good  motto,"  from 
which  I  begin  my  account  of  the  visit  again. 

—  Do  you  receive  many  visitors,  —  I  mean 
vert  ?b  rates,  not  articulates  ?  —  said  the  Mas 
ter. 

I  thought  this  question  might  perhaps 
bring  II  disiato  riso,  the  long-wished-for 
smile,  but  the  Scarabee  interpreted  it  in  the 
simplest  zoological  sense,  and  neglected  its 
hint  of  playfulness  with  the  most  absolute 
unconsciousness,  apparently,  of  anything  not 
entirely  serious  and  literal. 

—  You  mean  friends,  I  suppose,  —  he  an 
swered.  —  I  have  correspondents,  but  I  have 
no  friends  except  this  spider.     I  live  alone, 
except  when  I  go  to  my  subsection  meetings  ; 
I  get  a  box  of  insects  now  and  then,  and 


354  THE  POET  AT 

send  a  few  beetles  to  coleopterists  in  other 
entomological  districts  ;  but  science  is  exact 
ing,  and  a  man  that  wants  to  leave  his  record 
has  not  much  time  for  friendship.  There  is 
no  great  chance  either  for  making  friends 
among  naturalists.  People  that  are  at  work 
on  different  things  do  not  care  a  great  deal 
for  each  other's  specialties,  and  people  that 
work  on  the  same  thing  are  always  afraid 
lest  one  should  get  ahead  of  the  other,  or 
steal  some  of  his  ideas  before  he  has  made 
them  public.  There  are  none  too  many  peo 
ple  you  can  trust  in  your  laboratory.  I 
thought  I  had  a  friend  once,  but  he  watched 
me  at  work  and  stole  the  discovery  of  a  new 
species  from  me,  and,  what  is  more,  had  it 
named  after  himself.  Since  that  time  I  have 
liked  spiders  better  than  men.  They  are  hun 
gry  and  savage,  but  at  any  rate  they  spin 
their  own  webs  out  of  their  own  insides.  I 
like  very  well  to  talk  with  gentlemen  that 
play  with  my  branch  of  entomology  ;  I  do 
not  doubt  it  amused  you,  and  if  you  want  to 
see  anything  I  can  show  you,  I  shall  have  no 
scruple  in  letting  you  see  it.  I  have  never 
had  any  complaint  to  make  of  amatoors. 

-  Upon  my  honor,  —  I  would  hold  my 
right  hand  up  and  take  my  Bible-oath,  if  it 
was  not  busy  with  the  pen  at  this  moment, 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  355 

—  I  do  not  believe  the  Scarabee  had  the 
least  idea  in  the  world  of  the  satire  on  the 
student  of  the  Order  of  Things  implied  in 
his  invitation  to  the  "  amatoor."  As  for  the 
Master,  he  stood  fire  perfectly,  as  he  always 
does  ;  but  the  idea  that  he,  who  had  worked 
a  considerable  part  of  several  seasons  at  ex 
amining  and  preparing  insects,  who  believed 
himself  to  have  given  a  new  tabanus  to  the 
catalogue  of  native  diptera,  the  idea  that  he 
was  playing  with  science,  and  might  be 
trusted  anywhere  as  a  harmless  amateur, 
from  whom  no  expert  could  possibly  fear 
any  anticipation  of  his  unpublished  discov 
eries,  went  beyond  anything  set  down  in  that 
book  of  his  which  contained  so  much  of  the 
strainings  of  his  wisdom. 

The  poor  little  Scarabee  began  fidgeting 
round  about  this  time,  and  uttering  some 
half-audible  words,  apologetical,  partly,  and 
involving  an  allusion  to  refreshments.  As 
he  spoke,  he  opened  a  small  cupboard,  and 
as  he  did  so  out  bolted  an  uninvited  tenant 
of  the  same,  long  in  person,  sable  in  hue, 
and  swift  of  movement,  on  seeing  which  the 
Scarabee  simply  said,  without  emotion, 
blatta,  but  I,  forgetting  what  was  due  to 
good  manners,  exclaimed  cockroach  ! 

We  could  not  make  up  our  minds  to  tax 


356  THE  POET  AT 

the  Scarabee's  hospitality,  already  levied 
upon  by  the  voracious  articulate.  So  we 
both  alleged  a  state  of  utter  repletion,  and 
did  not  solve  the  mystery  of  the  contents  of 
the  cupboard,  —  not  too  luxurious,  it  may  be 
conjectured,  and  yet  kindly  offered,  so  that 
we  felt  there  was  a  moist  filament  of  the  so 
cial  instinct  running  like  a  nerve  through 
that  exsiccated  and  almost  anhydrous  organ 
ism. 

We  left  him  with  professions  of  esteem 
and  respect  which  were  real.  We  had  gone, 
not  to  scoff,  but  very  probably  to  smile,  and 
I  will  not  say  we  did  not.  But  the  Master 
was  more  thoughtful  than  usual. 

—  If  I  had  not  solemnly  dedicated  myself 
to  the  study  of  the  Order  of  Things,  —  he 
said,  —  I  do  verily  believe  I  would  give 
what  remains  to  me  of  life  to  the  investiga 
tion  of  some  single  point  I  could  utterly 
eviscerate  and  leave  finally  settled  for  the 
instruction  and,  it  may  be,  the  admiration 
of  all  coming  time.  The  keel  ploughs  ten 
thousand  leagues  of  ocean  and  leaves  no 
trace  of  its  deep-graven  furrows.  The  chisel 
scars  only  a  few  inches  on  the  face  of  a  rock, 
but  the  story  it  has  traced  is  read  by  a  hun 
dred  generations.  The  eagle  leaves  no  track 
of  his  path,  no  memory  of  the  place  where 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  357 

he  built  his  nest ;  but  a  patient  mollusk  has 
bored  a  little  hole  in  a  marble  column  of  the 
temple  o£  Serapis,  and  the  monument  of  his 
labor  outlasts  the  altar  and  the  statue  of  the 
divinity. 

—  Whew  !  —  said     I    to    myself,  —  that 
sounds    a  little  like    what  we  college    boys 
used    to    call    a    "  squirt."  —  The    Master 
guessed  my  thought  and  said,  smiling, 

—  That  is  from  one  of  my  old  lectures. 
A  man's  tongue  wags  along  quietly  enough, 
but  his  pen  begins    prancing  as  soon  as  it 
touches  paper.     I  know  what  you  are  think 
ing  —  you  're    thinking    this    is    a    squirt. 
That  word  has  taken  the  nonsense  out  of  a 
good    many  high-stepping    fellows.     But    it 
did  a  good  deal  of  harm  too,  and  it  was  a 
vulgar  lot  that  applied  it  oftenest. 

1  am  at  last  perfectly  satisfied  that  our 
Landlady  has  no  designs  on  the  Capitalist, 
and  as  well  convinced  that  any  fancy  of 
mine  that  he  was  like  to  make  love  to  her 
was  a  mistake.  The  good  woman  is  too 
much  absorbed  in  her  children,  and  more 
especially  in  "  the  Doctor,"  as  she  delights 
to  call  her  son,  to  be  the  prey  of  any  foolish 
desire  of  changing  her  condition.  She  is 
doing  very  well  as  it  is,  and  if  the  young 


358  THE  POET  AT 

man  succeeds,  as  I  have  little  question  that 
he  will,  I  think  it  probable  enough  that  she 
will  retire  from  her  position  as  the  head  of 
a  boarding-house.  We  have  all  liked  the 
good  woman  who  have  lived  with  her,  - 
mean  we  three  friends  who  have  put  our 
selves  on  record.  Her  talk,  I  must  confess, 
is  a  little  diffuse  and  not  always  absolutely 
correct,  according  to  the  standard  of  the 
great  Worcester  ;  she  is  subject  to  lachry 
mose  cataclysms  and  semiconvulsive  upheav 
als  when  she  reverts  in  memory  to  her  past 
trials,  and  especially  when  she  recalls  the 
virtues  of  her  deceased  spouse,  who  was,  I 
suspect,  an  adjunct  such  as  one  finds  not 
rarely  annexed  to  a  capable  matron  in 
charge  of  an  establishment  like  hers  ;  that 
is  to  say,  an  easy-going,  harmless,  fetch-aud- 
earry,  carve-and-help,  get-out-of-the-way  kind 
of  neuter,  who  comes  up  three  times  (as  they 
say  drowning  people  do)  every  day,  namely, 
at  breakfast,  dinner,  and  tea,  and  disap 
pears,  submerged  beneath  the  waves  of  life, 
during  the  intervals  of  these  events. 

It  is  a  source  of  genuine  delight  to  me, 
who  am  of  a  kindly  nature  enough,  accord 
ing  to  my  own  reckoning,  to  watch  the  good 
woman,  and  see  what  looks  of  pride  and  af 
fection  she  bestows  upon  her  Benjamin,  and 


THE  BEE AKF AST-TABLE.  359 

how,  in  spite  of  herself,  the  maternal  feeling 
betrays  its  influence  in  her  dispensations  of 
those  delicacies  which  are  the  exceptional 
element  in  our  entertainments.  I  will  not 
say  that  Benjamin's  mess,  like  his  Scripture 
namesake's,  is  five  times  as  large  as  that  of 
any  of  the  others,  for  this  would  imply  either 
an  economical  distribution  to  the  guests  in 
general  or  heaping  the  poor  young  man's 
plate  in  a  way  that  would  spoil  the  appetite 
of  an  Esquimau,  but  you  may  be  sure  he 
fares  well  if  anybody  does ;  and  I  would 
have  you  understand  that  our  Landlady 
knows  what  is  what  as  well  as  who  is  who. 

I  begin  really  to  entertain  very  sanguine 
expectations  of  young  Doctor  Benjamin 
Franklin.  He  has  lately  been  treating  a 
patient  whose  good-will  may  prove  of  great 
importance  to  him.  The  Capitalist  hurt  one 
of  his  fingers  somehow  or  other,  and  requested 
our  young  doctor  to  take  a  look  at  it.  The 
young  doctor  asked  nothing  better  than  to 
take  charge  of  the  case,  which  proved  more 
serious  than  might  have  been  at  first  ex 
pected,  and  kept  him  in  attendance  more  than 
a  week.  There  was  one  very  odd  thing  about 
it.  The  Capitalist  seemed  to  have  an  idea 
that  he  was  like  to  be  ruined  in  the  matter  of 
bandages,  —  small  strips  of  worn  linen  which 


360  THE  POET  AT 

any  old  woman  could  have  spared  him  from 
her  rag-bag,  but  which,  with  that  strange  per 
versity  which  long  habits  of  economy  give  to* 
a  good  many  elderly  people,  he  seemed  to 
think  were  as  precious  as  if  they  had  been 
turned  into  paper  and  stamped  with  prom 
ises  to  pay  in  thousands,  from  the  national 
treasury.  It  was  impossible  to  get  this  whim 
out  of  him,  and  the  young  doctor  had  tact 
enough  to  humor  him  in  it.  All  this  did  not 
look  very  promising  for  the  state  of  mind  in 
which  the  patient  was  like  to  receive  his  bill 
for  attendance  when  that  should  be  presented. 
Doctor  Benjamin  was  man  enough,  however, 
to  come  up  to  the  mark,  and  sent  him  in 
such  an  account  as  it  was  becoming  to  send 
a  man  of  ample  means  who  had  been  dili 
gently  and  skilfully  cared  for.  He  looked 
forward  with  some  uncertainty  as  to  how  it 
would  be  received.  Perhaps  his  patient  would 
try  to  beat  him  down,  and  Doctor  Benjamin 
made  up  his  mind  to  have  the  whole  or 
nothing.  Perhaps  he  would  pay  the  whole 
amount,  but  with  a  look,  and  possibly  a  word, 
that  would  make  every  dollar  of  it  burn  like 
a  blister. 

Doctor  Benjamin's  conjectures  were  not 
unnatural,  but  quite  remote  from  the  actual 
fact.  As  soon  as  his  patient  had  got  entirely 


THE  BREAKFAST -TABLE.  361 

well,  the  young  physician  sent  in  his  bill. 
The  Capitalist  requested  him  to  step  into  his 
room  with  him,  and  paid  the  full  charge  in 
the  handsomest  and  most  gratifying  way, 
thanking  him  for  his  skill  and  attention,  and 
assuring  him  that  he  had  had  great  satisfac 
tion  in  submitting  himself  to  such  competent 
hands,  and  should  certainly  apply  to  him 
again  in  case  he  should  have  any  occasion 
for  a  medical  adviser.  We  must  not  be  too 
sagacious  in  judging  people  by  the  little 
excrescences  of  their  character.  Ex  pede 
Herculem  may  often  prove  safe  enough,  but 
ex  verruca  Tullium  is  liable  to  mislead  a 
hasty  judge  of  his  fellow-men. 

I  have  studied  the  people  called  misers 
and  thought  a  good  deal  about  them.  In 
former  years  I  used  to  keep  a  little  gold  by  mo 
in  order  to  ascertain  for  myself  exactly  the 
amount  of  pleasure  to  be  got  out  of  han 
dling  it ;  this  being  the  traditional  delight  of 
the  old-fashioned  miser.  It  is  by  no  means 
to  be  despised.  Three  or  four  hundred  dol 
lars  in  double-eagles  will  do  very  well  to  ex 
periment  on.  There  is  something  very  agree 
able  in  the  yellow  gleam,  very  musical  in  the 
metallic  clink,  very  satisfying  in  the  singular 
weight,  and  very  stimulating  in  the  feeling 
that  all  the  world  over  these  same  yellow 


362  THE  POET  AT 

disks  are  the  master-keys  that  let  one  in 
wherever  he  wants  to  go,  the  servants  that 
bring  him  pretty  nearly  everything  he  wants, 
except  virtue,  —  and  a  good  deal  of  what 
passes  for  that.  I  confess,  then,  to  an  hon 
est  liking  for  the  splendors  and  the  specific 
gravity  and  the  manifold  potentiality  of  the 
royal  metal,  and  I  understand,  after  a  cer 
tain  imperfect  fashion,  the  delight  that  an 
old  ragged  wretch,  starving  himself  in  a 
crazy  hovel,  takes  in  stuffing  guineas  into  old 
stockings  and  filling  earthen  pots  with  sov 
ereigns,  and  every  now  and  then  visiting  his 
hoards  and  fingering  the  fat  pieces,  and  think 
ing  over  all  that  they  represent  of  earthly 
and  angelic  and  diabolic  energy.  A  miser 
pouring  out  his  guineas  into  his  palm  and 
bathing  his  shrivelled  and  trembling  hands 
in  the  yellow  heaps  before  him,  is  not  the 
prosaic  being  we  are  in  the  habit  of  think 
ing  him.  He  is  a  dreamer,  almost  a  poet 
You  and  I  read  a  novel  or  a  poem  to  help 
our  imaginations  to  build  up  palaces,  and 
transport  us  into  the  emotional  states  and 
the  felicitous  conditions  of  the  ideal  charac 
ters  pictured  in  the  book  we  are  reading. 
But  think  of  him  and  the  significance  of  the 
symbols  he  is  handling  as  compared  with  the 
empty  syllables  and  words  we  are  using  to 


He.  is  a  dr\2.ari-ic,r  ,  almo-ft 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  363 

build  our  aerial  edifices  with !  In  this  hand 
he  holds  the  smile  of  beauty  and  in  that  the 
dagger  of  revenge.  The  contents  of  that  old 
glove  will  buy  him  the  willing  service  of 
many  an  adroit  sinner,  and  with  what  that 
coarse  sack  contains  he  can  purchase  the 
prayers  of  holy  men  for  all  succeeding  time. 
In  this  chest  is  a  castle  in  Spain,  a  real  one., 
and  not  only  in  Spain,  but  anywhere  he  will 
choose  to  have  it.  If  he  would  know  what 
is  the  liberality  of  judgment  of  any  of  the 
straiter  sects,  he  has  only  to  hand  over  that 
box  of  rouleaux  to  the  trustees  of  one  of  its 
educational  institutions  for  the  endowment 
of  two  or  three  professorships.  If  he  would 
dream  of  being  remembered  by  coming  gen 
erations,  what  monument  so  enduring  as  a 
college  building  that  shall  bear  his  name,  and 
even  when  its  solid  masonry  shall  crumble 
give  place  to  another  still  charged  with  the 
same  sacred  duty  of  perpetuating  his  remem 
brance.  Who  was  Sir  Matthew  Hoi  worthy, 
that  his  name  is  a  household  word  on  the  lips 
of  thousands  of  scholars,  and  will  be  centu 
ries  hence,  as  that  of  Walter  de  Merton, 
dead  six  hundred  years  ago,  is  to-day  at  Ox 
ford  ?  Who  was  Mistress  Holden,  that  she 
should  be  blessed  among  women  by  having 
her  name  spoken  gratefully  and  the  little 


364  THE  POET  AT 

edifice  she  caused  to  be  erected  preserved  as 
her  monument  from  generation  to  genera 
tion  ?  All  these  possibilities,  the  lust  of  the 
eye,  the  lust  of  the  flesh,  the  pride  of  life  ; 
the  tears  of  grateful  orphans  by  the  gallon  ; 
the  prayers  of  Westminster  Assembly's  Cat 
echism  divines  by  the  thousand  ;  the  masses 
of  priests  by  the  century  ;  —  all  these  things, 
and  more  if  more  there  be  that  the  imagina 
tion  of  a  lover  of  gold  is  likely  to  range  over, 
the  miser  hears  and  sees  and  feels  and  hugs 
and  enjoys  as  he  paddles  with  his  lean  hands 
among  the  sliding,  shining,  ringing,  innocent- 
looking  bits  of  yellow  metal,  toying  with 
them  as  the  lion-tamer  handles  the  great  car 
nivorous  monster,  whose  might  and  whose 
terrors  are  child's  play  to  the  latent  forces 
and  power  of  harm-doing  of  the  glittering 
counters  played  with  in  the  great  game  be 
tween  angels  and  devils. 

I  have  seen  a  good  deal  of  misers,  and  I 
think  I  understand  them  as  well  as  most 
persons  do.  But  the  Capitalist's  economy  in 
rags  and  his  liberality  to  the  young  doctor 
are  very  oddly  contrasted  with  each  other. 
I  should  not  be  surprised  at  any  time  to 
hear  that  he  had  endowed  a  scholarship  or 
professorship  or  built  a  college  dormitory,  in 
spite  of  his  curious  parsimony  in  old  linen* 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  365 

I  do  not  know  where  our  Young  Astron 
omer  got  the  notions  that  he  expresses  so 
freely  in  the  lines  that  follow.  I  think  the 
statement  is  true,  however,  which  I  see  in 
one  of  the  most  popular  Cyclopaedias,  that 
"  the  non-clerical  mind  in  all  ages  is  disposed 
to  look  favorably  upon  the  doctrine  of  the 
universal  restoration  to  holiness  and  happi 
ness  of  all  fallen  intelligences,  whether  hu 
man  or  angelic."  Certainly,  most  of  the 
poets  who  have  reached  the  heart  of  men, 
since  Burns  dropped  the  tear  for  poor  "  auld 
Nickie-ben  "  that  softened  the  stony-hearted 
theology  of  Scotland,  have  had  "  non-cleri 
cal  "  minds,  and  I  suppose  our  young  friend 
is  in  his  humble  way  an  optimist  like  them. 
What  he  says  in  verse  is  very  much  the 
same  thing  as  what  is  said  in  prose  in  all 
companies,  and  thought  by  a  great  many 
who  are  thankful  to  anybody  that  will  say 
it  for  them,  —  not  a  few  clerical  as  well  as 
"  non-clerical  "  persons  among  them. 

WIND-CLOUDS  AND  STAR-DRIFTS. 

IV. 

What  am  I  but  the  creature  Thou  hast  made  ? 
What  have  I  save  the  blessings  Thou  hast  lent  ? 
What  hope  I  but  Thy  mercy  and  Thy  love  ? 


366  THE  POET  AT 

Who  but  myself  shall  cloud  my  soul  with  fear  ? 
Whose  hand  protect  me  from  myself  but  Thine  ? 

I  claim  the  rights  of  weakness,  I,  the  babe, 
Call  on  my  sire  to  shield  me  from  the  ills 
That  still  beset  my  path,  not  trying  me 
With  snares  beyond  my  wisdom  or  my  strength, 
He  knowing  I  shall  use  them  to  my  harm, 
And  find  a  tenfold  misery  in  the  sense 
That  in  my  childlike  folly  I  have  sprung 
The  trap  upon  myself  as  vermin  use 
Drawn  by  the  cunning  bait  to  certain  doom. 
Who  wrought  the  wondrous   charm    that   leads 

us  on 

To  sweet  perdition,  but  the  self-same  power 
That  set  the  fearful  engine  to  destroy 
His  wretched  offspring  (as  the  Rabbis  tell), 
And  hid  its  yawning  jaws  and  treacherous  springs 
In  such  a  show  of  innocent  sweet  flowers 
It  lured  the  sinless  angels  and  they  fell  ? 

Ah  !     He  who  prayed  the  prayer  of  all  man 
kind 
Summed  in  those  few  brief  words  the  mightiest 

plea 

For  erring  souls  before  the  courts  of  heaven,  — 
Save  us  from  being  tempted,  —  lest  we  fall ! 

If  we  are  only  as  the  potter's  clay 
Made  to  be  fashioned  as  the  artist  wills, 
And  broken  into  shards  if  we  offend 
The  eye  of  him  who  made  us,  it  is  well ; 
Such  love  as  the  insensate  lump  of  clay 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  367 

That  spins  upon  the  swift-revolving  wheel 
Bears    to    the    hand    that   shapes    its    growing 

form,  — 

Such  love,  no  more,  will  be  our  hearts'  return 
To  the  great  Master-workman  for  his  care,  — 
Or  would  be,  save  that  this,  our  breathing  clay, 
Is  intertwined  with  fine  immmerous  threads 
That  make  it  conscious  in  its  framer's  hand  ; 
And  this  He  must  remember  who  has  filled 
These  vessels  with  the  deadly  draught  of  life,  — 
Life,  that  means  deatli  to  all  it  claims.    Our  love 
Must  kindle  in  the  ray  that  streams  from  heaven, 
A  faint  reflection  of  the  light  divine  ; 
The  sun  must  warm  the  earth  before  the  rose 
Can  show  her  inmost  heart-leaves  to  the  sun. 

He  yields  some  fraction  of  the  Maker's  right 

Who  gives  the  quivering  nerve  its  sense  of  pain  ; 

Is  there  not  something  in  the  pleading  eye 

Of  the  poor  brute  that  suffers,  which  arraigns 

The  law  that  bids  it  suffer  ?     Has  it  not 

A  claim  for  some  remembrance  in  the  book 

That  fills  its  pages  with  the  idle  words 

Spoken  of  men  ?     Or  is  it  only  clay, 

Bleeding  and  aching  in  the  potter's  hand, 

Yet  all  his  own  to  treat  it  as  he  will 

And  when  he  will  to  cast  it  at  his  feet, 

Shattered,  dishonored,  lost  forevermore  ? 

My  dog  loves  me,  but  could  he  look  beyond 

His  earthly  master,  would  his  love  extend 

To  Him  who  —    Hush !  I  will  not  doubt  that  He 


368  THE  POET  AT 

Is  better  than  our  fears,  and  will  not  wrong 
The  least,  the  meanest  of  created  things  ! 

He  would  not  trust  me  with  the  smallest  orb 
That  circles  through  the  sky  ;  he  would  not  give 
A  meteor  to  my  guidance ;  would  not  leave 
The  coloring  of  a  cloudlet  to  my  hand  ; 
He  locks  my  beating  heart  beneath  its  bars 
And  keeps  the  key  himself ;  he  measures  out 
The  draughts  of  vital  breath  that  warm  my  blood, 
Winds  up  the  springs  of  instinct  which  uncoil, 
Each  in  its  season  ;  ties  me  to  my  home, 
My  race,  my  time,  my  nation,  and  my  creed 
So  closely  that  if  I  but  slip  my  wrist 
Out  of  the  band  that  cuts  it  to  the  bone, 
Men  say,  "  He  hath  a  devil  "  ;  he  has  lent 
All  that  I  hold  in  trust,  as  unto  one 
By  reason  of  his  weakness  and  his  years 
Not  fit  to  hold  the  smallest  shred  in  fee 
Of  those  most  common  things  he  calls  his  own  — 
And  yet  —  my  Rabbi  tells  me  — he  has  left 
The  care  of  that  to  which  a  million  worlds 
Filled    with    unconscious    life    were   less    than 

naught, 

Has  left  that  mighty  universe,  the  Soul, 
To  the  weak  guidance  of  our  baby  hands, 
Turned  us  adrift  with  our  immortal  charge, 
Let  the  foul  fiends  have  access  at  their  will, 
Taking  the  shape  of  angels,  to  our  hearts,  — 
Our  hearts  already  poisoned  through  and  through 
With  the  fierce  virus  of  ancestral  sin. 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  369 

If  what  my  Rabbi  tells  me  is  the  truth 
Why  did  the  choir  of  angels  sing  for  joy  ? 
Heaven  must  be  compassed  in  a  narrow  space, 
And  offer  more  than  room  enough  for  all 
That  pass  its  portals  ;  but  the  underworld, 
The  godless  realm,  the  place  where  demons  forge 
Their  fiery  darts  and  adamantine  chains, 
Must  swarm  with  ghosts  that  for  a  little  while 
Had  worn  the  garb  of  flesh,  and  being  heirs 
Of  all  the  dulness  of  their  stolid  sires, 
And  all  the  erring  instincts  of  their  tribe, 
Nature's  own  teaching,  rudiments  of  "  sin," 
Fell  headlong  in  the  snare  that  could  not  fail 
To  trap  the  wretched  creatures  shaped  of  clay 
And  cursed  with  sense  enough  to  lose  their  souls  \ 

Brother,  thy  heart  is  troubled  at  my  word ; 
Sister,  I  see  the  cloud  is  on  thy  brow. 
He  will  not  blame  me,  He  who  sends  not  peace, 
But  sends  a  sword,  and  bids  us  strike  amain 
At  Error's  gilded  crest,  where  in  the  van 
Of  earth's  great  army,  mingling  with  the  best 
And  bravest  of  its  leaders,  shouting  loud 
The  battle-cries  that  yesterday  have  led 
The  host  of  Truth  to  victory,  but  to-day 
Are  watchwords  of  the  laggard  and  the  slave, 
He  leads  his  dazzled  cohorts.     God  has  made 
This  world  a  strife  of  atoms  and  of  spheres ; 
With  every  breath  I  sigh  myself  away 
And  take  my  tribute  from  the  wandering  wind 
To  fan  the  flame  of  life's  consuming  fire  ; 
So,  while  my  thought  has  life,  it  needs  must  burn, 


870  THE  POET  AT 

And  burning,  set  the  stubble-fields  ablaze, 
Where  all  the  harvest  long  ago  was  reaped 
And  safely  garnered  in  the  ancient  barns, 
But  still  the  gleaners,  groping  for  their  food, 
Go  blindly  feeling  through  the  close-shorn  straw, 
While    the  young  reapers    flash  their  glittering 

steel 
Where  later  suns  have  ripened  nobler  grain  ! 

We  listened  to  these  lines  in  silence. 
They  were  evidently  written  honestly,  and 
with  feeling,  and  no  doubt  meant  to  be  rev 
erential.  I  thought,  however,  the  Lady 
looked  rather  serious  as  he  finished  reading. 
The  Young  Girl's  cheeks  were  flushed,  but 
she  was  not  in  the  mood  for  criticism. 

As  we  came  away  the  Master  said  to  me 
—  The  stubble-fields  are  mighty  slow  to 
take  fire.  These  young  fellows  catch  up 
with  the  world's  ideas  one  after  another,  — 
they  have  been  tamed  a  long  while,  but  they 
find  them  running  loose  in  their  minds,  and 
think  they  are  force  natures.  They  remind 
me  of  young  sportsmen  who  fire  at  the  first 
feathers  they  see,  and  bring  down  a  barn 
yard  fowl.  But  the  chicken  may  be  worth 
bagging  for  all  that,  he  said,  good-hurnoredly. 


THE  BEEAKFAST-TABLE.  371 


X. 

Caveat  Lector.  Let  the  reader  look  out 
for  himself.  The  old  Master,  whose  words 
I  have  so  frequently  quoted  and  shall  quote 
more  of,  is  a  dogmatist  who  lays  down  the 
law,  ex  cathedra,  from  the  chair  of  his  own 
personality.  I  do  not  deny  that  he  has  the 
ambition  of  knowing  something  about  a 
greater  number  of  subjects  than  any  one 
man  ought  to  meddle  with,  except  in  a  very 
humble  and  modest  way.  And  that  is  not 
his  way.  There  was  no  doubt  something  of 
humorous  bravado  in  his  saying  that  the  ac 
tual  "  order  of  things  "  did  not  offer  a  field 
sufficiently  ample  for  his  intelligence.  But 
if  I  found  fault  with  him,  which  would  be 
easy  enough,  I  should  say  that  he  holds  and 
expresses  definite  opinions  about  matters 
that  he  could  afford  to  leave  open  questions, 
or  ask  the  judgment  of  others  about.  But 
I  do  not  want  to  find  fault  with  him.  If  he 
does  not  settle  all  the  points  he  speaks  of  so 
authoritatively,  he  sets  me  thinking  about 
them,  and  I  like  a  man  as  a  companion  who 
is  not  afraid  of  a  half-truth.  I  know  he 
says  some  things  peremptorily  that  he  may 
inwardly  debate  with  himself.  There  are 


372  THE  POET  AT 

two  ways  of  dealing  with  assertions  of  this 
kind.  One  may  attack  them  on  the  false 
side  and  perhaps  gain  a  conversational  vic 
tory.  But  I  like  better  to  take  them  up  on 
the  true  side  and  see  how  much  can  be  made 
of  that  aspect  of  the  dogmatic  assertion.  It 
is  the  only  comfortable  way  of  dealing  with 
persons  like  the  old  Master. 

There  have  been  three  famous  talkers  in 
Great  Britain,  either  of  whom  would  illus 
trate  what  I  say  about  dogmatists  well 
enough  for  my  purpose.  You  cannot  doubt 
to  what  three  I  refer :  Samuel  the  First, 
Samuel  the  Second,  and  Thomas,  last  of  the 
Dynasty.  (I  mean  the  living  Thomas  and 
not  Thomas  B.) 

I  say  the  last  of  the  Dynasty,  for  the  con 
versational  dogmatist  on  the  imperial  scale 
becomes  every  year  more  and  more  an  im 
possibility.  If  he  is  in  intelligent  company 
he  will  be  almost  sure  to  find  some  one  who 
knows  more  about  some  of  the  subjects  he 
generalizes  upon  than  any  wholesale  thinker 
who  handles  knowledge  by  the  cargo  is  like 
to  know.  I  find  myself,  at  certain  intervals, 
in  the  society  of  a  number  of  experts  in 
science,  literature,  and  art,  who  cover  a 
pretty  wide  range,  taking  them  all  together, 
of  human  knowledge.  I  have  not  the  least 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  373 

doubt  that  if  the  great  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson 
should  come  in  and  sit  with  this  company 
at  one  of  their  Saturday  dinners,  he  would 
be  listened  to,  as  he  always  was,  with  respect 
and  attention.  But  there  are  subjects  upon 
which  the  great  talker  could  speak  magiste 
rially  in  his  time  and  at  his  club,  upon  which 
so  wise  a  man  would  express  himself  guard 
edly  at  the  meeting  where  I  have  supposed 
him  a  guest.  We  have  a  scientific  man  or 
two  among  us,  for  instance,  who  would  be 
entitled  to  smile  at  the  good  Doctor's  esti 
mate  of  their  labors,  as  I  give  it  here  :  — 

"  Of  those  that  spin  out  life  in  trifles 
and  die  without  a  memorial,  many  flatter 
themselves  with  high  opinion  of  their  own 
importance  and  imagine  that  they  are  every 
day  adding  some  improvement  to  human 
life."  —  "  Some  turn  the  wheel  of  electricity, 
some  suspend  rings  to  a  loadstone,  and  find 
that  what  they  did  yesterday  they  can  do 
again  to-day.  Some  register  the  changes  of 
the  wind,  and  die  fully  convinced  that  the 
wind  is  changeable. 

"  There  are  men  yet  more  profound,  who 
have  heard  that  two  colorless  liquors  may 
produce  a  color  by  union,  and  that  two  cold 
bodies  will  grow  hot  if  they  are  mingled  ; 
they  mingle  them,  and  produce  the  effect 


374  THE  POET  AT 

expected,  say  it  is  strange,  and  mingle  them 


"&* 


I  cannot  transcribe  this  extract  without 
an  intense  inward  delight  in  its  wit  and  a 
full  recognition  of  its  thorough  half-truthful 
ness.  Yet  if  while  the  great  moralist  is 
indulging  in  these  vivacities,  he  can  be  im 
agined  as  receiving  a  message  from  Mr. 
Bos  well  or  Mrs.  Thrale  flashed  through  the 
depths  of  the  ocean,  we  can  suppose  he 
might  be  tempted  to  indulge  in  another 
oracular  utterance,  something  like  this  :  — 

—  A  wise  man  recognizes  the  convenience 
of  a  general  statement,  but  he  bows  to  the 
authority  of  a  particular  fact.  He  who  would 
bound  the  possibilities  of  human  knowledge 
by  the  limitations  of  present  acquirements 
would  take  the  dimensions  of  the  infant  in 
ordering  the  habiliments  of  the  adult.  It  is 
the  province  of  knowledge  to  speak  and  it  is 
the  privilege  of  wisdom  to  listen.  Will  the 
Professor  have  the  kindness  to  inform  me 
by  what  steps  of  gradual  development  the 
ring  and  the  loadstone,  which  were  but  yes 
terday  the  toys  of  children  and  idlers,  have 
become  the  means  of  approximating  the  in 
telligences  of  remote  continents,  and  wafting 
emotions  unchilled  through  the  abysses  of 
the  no  longer  unfathomable  deep? 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  375 

—  This,  you  understand,  Beloved,  is  only 
a  conventional  imitation  of  the  Doctor's  style 
of  talking.  He  wrote  in  grand  balanced 
phrases,  but  his  conversation  was  good, 
lusty,  off-hand  familiar  talk.  He  used  very 
often  to  have  it  all  his  own  way.  If  he  came 
back  to  us  we  must  remember  that  to  treat 
him  fairly  we  must  suppose  him  on  a  level 
with  the  knowledge  of  our  own  time.  But 
that  knowledge  is  more  specialized,  a  great 
deal,  than  knowledge  was  in  his  day.  Men 
cannot  talk  about  things  they  have  seen 
from  the  outside  with  the  same  magisterial 
authority  the  talking  dynasty  pretended  to. 
The  sturdy  old  moralist  felt  grand  enough, 
no  doubt,  when  he  said,  "  He  that  is  grow 
ing  great  and  happy  by  electrifying  a  bottle 
wonders  how  the  world  can  be  engaged  by 
trifling  prattle  about  war  or  peace."  Ben 
jamin  Franklin  was  one  of  these  idlers  who 
were  electrifying  bottles,  but  he  also  found 
time  to  engage  in  the  trifling  prattle  about 
war  and  peace  going  on  in  those  times.  The 
talking  Doctor  hits  him  very  hard  in  "  Tax 
ation  no  Tyranny  "  :  "  Those  who  wrote  the 
Address  (of  the  American  Congress  in 
1775),  though  they  have  shown  no  great  ex 
tent  or  profundity  of  mind,  are  yet  probably 
wiser  than  to  believe  it :  but  they  have  been 


376  THE  POET  AT 

taught  by  some  master  of  mischief  how  to 
put  in  motion  the  engine  of  political  elec 
tricity  ;  to  attract  by  the  sounds  of  Liberty 
and  Property,  to  repel  by  those  of  Popery 
and  Slavery  ;  and  to  give  the  great  stroke 
by  the  name  of  Boston." 

The  talking  dynasty  has  always  been  hard 
upon  us  Americans.  King  Samuel  II.  says  : 
"  It  is,  I  believe,  a  fact  verified  beyond 
doubt,  that  some  years  ago  it  was  impossible 
to  obtain  a  copy  of  the  Newgate  Calendar, 
as  they  had  all  been  bought  up  by  the  Amer 
icans,  whether  to  suppress  the  blazon  of 
their  forefathers  or  to  assist  in  their  gene 
alogical  researches  I  could  never  learn  satis 
factorily." 

As  for  King  Thomas,  the  last  of  the  mon- 
ological  succession,  he  made  such  a  piece  of 
work  with  his  prophecies  and  his  sarcasms 
about  our  little  trouble  with  some  of  the 
Southern  States,  that  we  came  rather  to  pity 
him  for  his  whims  and  crotchets  than  to  get 
angry  with  him  for  calling  us  bores  and 
other  unamiable  names. 

I  do  not  think  we  believe  things  because 
considerable  people  say  them,  on  personal 
authority,  that  is,  as  intelligent  listeners 
very  commonly  did  a  century  ago.  The 
newspapers  have  lied  that  belief  out  of  us. 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  377 

Any  man  who  has  a  pretty  gift  of  talk  may 
hold  his  company  a  little  while  when  there 
is  nothing  better  stirring.  Every  now  and 
then  a  man  who  may  be  dull  enough  pre 
vailingly  has  a  passion  of  talk  come  over 
him  which  makes  him  eloquent  and  silences 
the  rest.  I  have  a  great  respect  for  these 
divine  paroxysms,  these  half-inspired  mo 
ments  of  influx  when  they  seize  one  whom 
we  had  not  counted  among  the  luminaries 
of  the  social  sphere.  But  the  man  who  can 
give  us  a  fresh  experience  on  anything  that 
interests  us  overrides  everybody  else.  A 
great  peril  escaped  makes  a  great  story-teller 
of  a  common  person  enough.  I  remember 
when  a  certain  vessel  was  wrecked  long  ago, 
that  one  of  the  survivors  told  the  story  as 
well  as  Defoe  could  have  told  it.  Never  a 
word  from  him  before ;  never  a  word  from 
him  since.  But  when  it  comes  to  talking 
one's  common  thoughts,  —  those  that  come 
and  go  as  the  breath  does ;  those  that  tread 
the  mental  areas  and  corridors  with  steady, 
even  foot-fall,  an  interminable  procession  of 
every  hue  and  garb,  —  there  are  few,  indeed, 
that  can  dare  to  lift  the  curtain  which  hangs 
before  the  window  in  the  breast  and  throw 
open  the  window,  and  let  us  look  and  listen. 
We  are  all  loyal  enough  to  our  sovereign 


378  THE   POET  AT 

when  he  shows  himself,  but  sovereigns  nre 
scarce.  I  never  saw  the  absolute  homage  of 
listeners  but  once,  that  I  remember,  to  a 
man's  common  talk,  and  that  was  to  the  con 
versation  of  an  old  man,  illustrious  by  his 
lineage  and  the  exalted  honors  he  had  won, 
whose  experience  had  lessons  for  the  wisest, 
and  whose  eloquence  had  made  the  boldest 
tremble. 

All  this  because  I  told  you  to  look  out  for 
yourselves  and  not  take  for  absolute  truth 
everything  the  old  Master  of  our  table,  or 
anybody  else  at  it  sees  fit  to  utter.  At  the 
same  time  I  do  not  think  that  he,  or  any  of 
us  whose  conversation  I  think  worth  report 
ing,  says  anything  for  the  mere  sake  of  say 
ing  it  and  without  thinking  that  it  holds 
some  truth,  even  if  it  is  not  unqualifiedly 
true. 

I  suppose  a  certain  number  of  my  readers 
wish  very  heartily  that  the  Young  Astron 
omer  whose  poetical  speculations  I  am  re 
cording  would  stop  trying  by  searching  to 
find  out  the  Almighty,  and  sign  the  thirty- 
nine  articles,  or  the  Westminster  Confession 
of  Faith,  at  any  rate  slip  his  neck  into  some 
collar  or  other,  and  pull  quietly  in  the  har 
ness,  whether  it  galled  him  or  not.  I  say, 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  379 

rather,  let  him  have  his  talk  out ;  if  nobody 
else  asks  the  questions  he  asks,  some  will  be 
glad  to  hear  them,  but  if  you,  the  reader, 
find  the  same  questions  in  your  own  mind, 
you  need  not  be  afraid  to  see  how  they  shape 
themselves  in  another's  intelligence.  Do  you 
recognize  the  fact  that  we  are  living  in  a 
new  time  ?  Knowledge  —  it  excites  pre 
judices  to  call  it  science  —  is  advancing  as 
irresistibly,  as  majestically,  as  remorselessly 
as  the  ocean  moves  in  upon  the  shore.  The 
courtiers  of  King  Canute  (I  am  not  afraid 
of  the  old  comparison),  represented  by  the 
adherents  of  the  traditional  beliefs  of  the 
period,  move  his  chair  back  an  inch  at  a 
time,  but  not  until  his  feet  are  pretty  damp, 
not  to  say  wet.  The  rock  on  which  he  sat 
securely  awhile  ago  is  completely  under 
water.  And  now  people  are  walking  up  and 
down  the  beach  and  judging  for  themselves 
how  far  inland  the  chair  of  King  Canute  is 
like  to  be  moved  while  they  and  their  chil 
dren  are  looking  on,  at  the  rate  in  which  it 
is  edging  backward.  And  it  is  quite  too  late 
to  go  into  hysterics  about  it. 

The  shore,  solid,  substantial,  a  great  deal 
more  than  eighteen  hundred  years  old,  is  nat 
ural  humanity.  The  beach  which  the  ocean 
of  knowledge  —  you  may  call  it  science  if  you 


380  THE  POET  AT 

like  —  is  flowing  over,  is  theological  human 
ity.  Somewhere  between  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount  and  the  teachings  of  Saint  Augus 
tine  sin  was  made  a  transferable  chattel.  (I 
leave  the  interval  wide  for  others  to  make 
narrow.) 

The  doctrine  of  heritable  guilt,  with  its 
mechanical  consequences,  has  done  for  our 
moral  nature  what  the  doctrine  of  demoniac 
possession  has  done  in  barbarous  times  and 
still  does  among  barbarous  tribes  for  disease. 
Out  of  that  black  cloud  came  the  lightning 
which  struck  the  compass  of  humanity.  Con 
science,  which  from  the  dawn  of  moral  be 
ing  had  pointed  to  the  poles  of  right  and 
wrong  only  as  the  great  current  of  will  flowed 
through  the  soul,  was  demagnetized,  para 
lyzed,  and  knew  henceforth  no  fixed  meridian, 
but  stayed  where  the  priest  or  the  council 
placed  it.  There  is  nothing  to  be  done  but 
to  polarize  the  needle  over  again.  And  for 
this  purpose  we  must  study  the  lines  of  direc 
tion  of  all  the  forces  which  traverse  our  hu 
man  nature. 

We  must  study  man  as  we  have  studied 
stars  and  rocks.  We  need  not  go,  we  are 
told,  to  our  sacred  books  for  astronomy  or 
geology  or  other  scientific  knowledge.  Do 
not  stop  there  !  Pull  Canute's  chair  back 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  381 

fifty  rods  at  once,  and  do  not  wait  until  he 
is  wet  to  the  knees  !  Say  now,  bravely,  as 
you  will  sooner  or  later  have  to  say,  that  we 
need  not  go  to  any  ancient  records  for  our 
anthropology.  Do  we  not  all  hope,  at  least, 
that  the  doctrine  of  man's  being  a  blighted 
abortion,  a  miserable  disappointment  to  his 
Creator,  and  hostile  and  hateful  to  him  from 
his  birth,  may  give  way  to  the  belief  that  he 
is  the  latest  terrestrial  manifestation  of  an 
ever  upward  -  striving  movement  of  divine 
power  ?  If  there  lives  a  man  who  does  not 
want  to  disbelieve  the  popular  notions  about 
the  condition  and  destiny  of  the  bulk  of  his 
race,  I  should  like  to  have  him  look  me  in 
the  face  and  tell  me  so. 

I  am  not  writing  for  the  basement  story  or 
the  nursery,  and  I  do  not  pretend  to  be,  but 
I  say  nothing  in  these  pages  which  would  not 
be  said  without  fear  of  offence  in  any  intelli 
gent  circle,  such  as  clergymen  of  the  higher 
castes  are  in  the  habit  of  frequenting.  There 
are  teachers  in  type  for  our  grandmothers 
and  our  grandchildren  who  vaccinate  the  two 
childhoods  with  wholesome  doctrine,  trans 
mitted  harmlessly  from  one  infant  to  an 
other.  But  we  three  men  at  our  table  have 
taken  the  disease  of  thinking  in  the  natural 
way.  It  is  an  epidemic  in  these  times,  and 


382  THE  POET  AT 

those  who  are  afraid  of  it  must  shut  them 
selves  up  close  or  they  will  catch  it. 

I  hope  none  of  us  are  wanting  in  rever 
ence.  One  at  least  of  us  is  a  regular  church 
goer,  and  believes  a  man  may  be  devout  and 
yet  very  free  in  the  expression  of  his  opin 
ions  on  the  gravest  subjects.  There  may  be 
some  good  people  who  think  that  our  young 
friend  who  puts  his  thoughts  in  verse  is  go 
ing  sounding  over  perilous  depths,  and  are 
frightened  every  time  he  throws  the  lead. 
There  is  nothing  to  be  frightened  at.  This 
is  a  manly  world  we  live  in.  Our  reverence 
is  good  for  nothing  if  it  does  not  begin  with 
self-respect.  Occidental  manhood  springs 
from  that  as  its  basis  ;  Oriental  manhood 
finds  the  greatest  satisfaction  in  self-abase 
ment.  There  is  no  use  in  trying  to  graft  the 
tropical  palm  upon  the  Northern  pine.  The 
same  divine  forces  underlie  the  growth  of 
both,  but  leaf  and  flower  and  fruit  must 
follow  the  law  of  race,  of  soil,  of  climate. 
Whether  the  questions  which  assail  my  young 
friend  have  risen  in  my  reader's  mind  or  not, 
he  knows  perfectly  well  that  nobody  can  keep 
such  questions  from  springing  up  in  every 
young  mind  of  any  force  or  honesty.  As 
for  the  excellent  little  wretches  who  grow  up 
in  what  they  are  taught,  with  never  a  scru- 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  383 

pie  or  a  query,  Protestant  or  Catholic,  Jew 
or  Mormon,  Mahometan  or  Buddhist,  they 
signify  nothing  in  the  intellectual  life  of  the 
race.  If  the  world  had  been  wholly  peopled 
with  such  half  -  vitalized  mental  negatives, 
there  never  would  have  been  a  creed  like 
that  of  Christendom. 

I  entirely  agree  with  the  spirit  of  the 
verses  I  have  looked  over,  in  this  point  at 
least,  that  a  true  man's  allegiance  is  given  to 
that  which  is  highest  in  his  own  nature.  He 
reverences  truth,  he  loves  kindness,  he  re 
spects  justice.  The  two  first  qualities  he 
understands  well  enough.  But  the  last,  jus 
tice,  at  least  as  between  the  Infinite  and 
the  finite,  has  been  so  utterly  dehumanized, 
disintegrated,  decomposed,  and  diabolized  in 
passing  through  the  minds  of  the  half-civi 
lized  banditti  who  have  peopled  and  unpeo 
pled  the  world  for  some  scores  of  genera 
tions,  that  it  has  become  a  mere  algebraic  x, 
and  has  no  fixed  value  whatever  as  a  human 
conception. 

As  for  power,  we  are  outgrowing  all  super 
stition  about  that.  We  have  not  the  slight 
est  respect  for  it  as  such,  and  it  is  just  as 
well  to  remember  this  in  all  our  spiritual  ad 
justments.  We  fear  power  when  we  cannot 
master  it ;  but  just  as  far  as  we  can  master 


384  THE  POET  AT 

it,  we  make  a  slave  and  a  beast  of  burden  of 
it  without  hesitation.  We  cannot  change 
the  ebb  and  flow  of  the  tides,  or  the  course 
of  the  seasons,  but  we  come  as  near  it  as  we 
can.  We  darn  out  the  ocean,  we  make  roses 
blow  in  winter  and  water  freeze  in  summer. 
We  have  no  more  reverence  for  the  sun  than 
we  have  for  a  fish-tail  gas-burner ;  we  stare 
into  his  face  with  telescopes  as  at  a  ballet- 
dancer  with  opera-glasses ;  we  pick  his  rays 
to  pieces  with  prisms  as  if  they  were  so 
many  skeins  of  colored  yarn;  we  tell  him 
we  do  not  want  his  company  and  shut  him 
out  like  a  troublesome  vagrant.  The  gods 
of  the  old  heathen  are  the  servants  of  to-day. 
Neptune,  Vulcan,  ^Eolus,  and  the  bearer  of 
the  thunderbolt  himself  have  stepped  down 
from  their  pedestals  and  put  on  our  livery. 
We  cannot  always  master  them,  neither  can 
we  always  master  our  servant,  the  horse,  but 
we  have  put  a  bridle  on  the  wildest  natural 
agencies.  The  mob  of  elemental  forces  is  as 
noisy  and  turbulent  as  ever,  but  the  stand 
ing  army  of  civilization  keeps  it  well  under, 
except  for  an  occasional  outbreak. 

When  I  read  the  Lady's  letter  printed 
some  time  since,  I  could  not  help  honoring 
the  feeling  which  prompted  her  in  writing  it. 
But  while  I  respect  the  innocent  incapacity 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  385 

of  tender  age  and  the  limitations  of  the 
comparatively  uninstructed  classes,  it  is 
quite  out  of  the  question  to  act  as  if  matters 
of  common  intelligence  and  universal  inter 
est  were  the  private  property  of  a  secret  so 
ciety,  only  to  be  meddled  with  by  those  who 
know  the  grip  and  the  password. 

We  must  get  over  the  habit  of  transfer 
ring  the  limitations  of  the  nervous  tempera 
ment  and  of  hectic  constitutions  to  the  great 
Source  of  all  the  mighty  forces  of  nature, 
animate  and  inanimate.  We  may  confi 
dently  trust  that  we  have  over  us  a  Being 
thoroughly  robust  and  grandly  magnani 
mous,  in  distinction  from  the  Infinite  Invalid 
bred  in  the  studies  of  sickly  monomaniacs, 
who  corresponds  to  a  very  common  human 
type,  but  makes  us  blush  for  him  when  we 
contrast  him  with  a  truly  noble  man,  such  as 
most  of  us  have  had  the  privilege  of  know 
ing  both  in  public  and  in  private  life. 

I  was  not  a  little  pleased  to  find  that  the 
Lady,  in  spite  of  her  letter,  sat  through  the 
young  man's  reading  of  portions  of  his  poem 
with  a  good  deal  of  complacency.  I  think  I 
can  guess  what  is  in  her  mind.  She  believes, 
as  so  many  women  do,  in  that  great  remedy 
for  discontent,  and  doubts  about  humanity, 
and  questionings  of  Providence,  and  all  sorts 


386  THE  POET  AT 

of  youthful  vagaries,  —  I  mean  the  love-cure. 
And  she  thinks,  not  without  some  reason, 
that  these  astronomical  lessons,  and  these 
readings  of  poetry  and  daily  proximity  at 
the  table,  and  the  need  of  two  young  hearts 
that  have  been  long  feeling  lonely,  and  youth 
and  nature  and  "  all  impulses  of  soul  and 
sense/'  as  Coleridge  has  it,  will  bring  these 
two  young  people  into  closer  relations  than 
they  perhaps  have  yet  thought  of  ;  and  so 
that  sweet  lesson  of  loving  the  neighbor 
whom  he  has  seen  may  lead  him  into  deeper 
and  more  trusting  communion  with  the 
Friend  and  Father  whom  he  has  not  seen. 

The  Young  Girl  evidently  did  not  intend 
that  her  accomplice  should  be  a  loser  by  the 
summary  act  of  the  Member  of  the  Haouse. 
I  took  occasion  to  ask  That  Boy  what  had 
become  of  all  the  popguns.  He  gave  me  to 
understand  that  popguns  were  played  out, 
but  that  he  had  got  a  squirt  and  a  whip,  and 
considered  himself  better  off  than  before. 

This  great  world  is  full  of  mysteries.  I 
can  comprehend  the  pleasure  to  be  got  out 
of  the  hydraulic  engine ;  but  what  can  be 
the  fascination  of  a  whip,  when  one  has  noth 
ing  to  flagellate  but  the  calves  of  his  own 
legs,  I  could  never  understand.  Yet  a  small 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  387 

riding-whip  is  the  most  popular  article  with 
the  miscellaneous  New-Englander  at  all 
great  gatherings,  —  cattle-shows  and  Fourth- 
of-July  celebrations.  If  Democritus  and 
Heraclitus  could  walk  arm  in  arm  through 
one  of  these  crowds,  the  first  would  be  in  a 
broad  laugh  to  see  the  multitude  of  young- 
persons  who  were  rejoicing  in  the  possession 
of  one  of  these  useless  and  worthless  little 
commodities ;  happy  himself  to  see  how 
easily  others  could  purchase  happiness.  But 
the  second  would  weep  bitter  tears  to  think 
what  a  rayless  and  barren  life  that  must  be 
which  could  extract  enjoyment  from  the 
miserable  flimsy  wand  that  has  such  magic 
attraction  for  sauntering  youths  and  sim 
pering  maidens.  What  a  dynamometer  of 
happiness  are  these  paltry  toys,  and  what  a 
rudimentary  vertebrate  must  be  the  freckled 
adolescent  whose  yearning  for  the  infinite 
can  be  stayed  even  for  a  single  hour  by  so 
trifling  a  boon  from  the  venal  hands  of  the 
finite  ! 

Pardon  these  polysyllabic  reflections,  Be 
loved,  but  I  never  contemplate  these  dear 
fellow-creatures  of  ours  without  a  delicious 
sense  of  superiority  to  them  and  to  all  ar 
rested  embryos  of  intelligence,  in  which  I 
have  no  doubt  you  heartily  sympathize  with 


388  THE  POET  AT 

me.  It  is  not  merely  when  I  look  at  the 
vacuous  countenances  of  the  mastigophori, 
the  whip-holders,  that  I  enjoy  this  luxury 
(though  I  would  not  miss  that  holiday  spec 
tacle  for  a  pretty  sum  of  money,  and  advise 
you  by  all  means  to  make  sure  of  it  next 
Fourth  of  July,  if  you  missed  it  this),  but  I 
get  the  same  pleasure  from  many  similar 
manifestations. 

I  delight  in  Regalia,  so  called,  of  the  kind 
not  worn  by  kings,  nor  obtaining  their  dia 
monds  from  the  mines  of  Golconda.  I  have 
a  passion  for  those  resplendent  titles  which 
are  not  conferred  by  a  sovereign  and  would 
not  be  the  open  sesame  to  the  courts  of  roy 
alty,  yet  which  are  as  opulent  in  impressive 
adjectives  as  any  Knight  of  the  Garter's  list 
of  dignities.  When  1  have  recognized  in  the 
e very-day  name  of  His  Very  Worthy  High 
Eminence  of  some  cabalistic  association,  the 
inconspicuous  individual  whose  trifling  in 
debtedness  to  me  for  value  received  remains 
in  a  quiescent  state  and  is  likely  long  to  con 
tinue  so,  I  confess  to  having  experienced  a 
thrill  of  pleasure.  I  have  smiled  to  think 
how  grand  his  magnificent  titular  append 
ages  sounded  in  his  own  ears  and  what  a 
feeble  tintinnabulation  they  made  in  mine. 
The  crimson  sash,  the  broad  diagonal  belt 


THE  BBEAKFAST-TABLE.  389 

of  the  mounted  marshal  of  a  great  proces 
sion,  so  cheap  in  themselves,  yet  so  entirely 
satisfactory  to  the  wearer,  tickle  my  heart's 
root. 

Perhaps  I  should  have  enjoyed  all  these 
weaknesses  of  my  infantile  fellow-creatures 
without  an  after-thought,  except  that  on  a 
certain  literary  anniversary  when  I  tie  the 
narrow  blue  and  pink  ribbons  in  my  button 
hole  and  show  my  decorated  bosom  to  the 
admiring  public,  I  am  conscious  of  a  certain 
sense  of  distinction  and  superiority  in  virtue 
of  that  trifling  addition  to  my  personal 
adornments  which  reminds  me  that  I  too 
have  some  embryonic  fibres  in  my  tolerably 
well-matured  organism. 

I  hope  I  have  not  hurt  your  feelings,  if 
you  happen  to  be  a  High  and  Mighty  Grand 
Functionary  in  any  illustrious  Fraternity. 
When  I  tell  you  that  a  bit  of  ribbon  in 
my  button-hole  sets  my  vanity  prancing,  I 
think  you  cannot  be  grievously  offended  that 
I  smile  at  the  resonant  titles  which  make 
you  something  more  than  human  in  your 
own  eyes.  I  would  not  for  the  world  be  mis 
taken  for  one  of  those  literary  roughs  whose 
brass  knuckles  leave  their  mark  on  the  fore 
heads  of  so  many  inoffensive  people. 

There  is  a  human  sub-species  character* 


390  THE  POET  AT 

ized  by  the  coarseness  of  its  fibre  and  the 
acrid  nature  of  its  intellectual  secretions.  It 
is  to  a  certain  extent  penetrative,  as  all  crea 
tures  are  which  are  provided  with  stings.  It 
has  an  instinct  which  guides  it  to  the  vulner 
able  parts  of  the  victim  on  which  it  fastens. 
These  two  qualities  give  it  a  certain  degree 
of  power  which  is  not  to  be  despised.  It 
might  perhaps  be  less  mischievous,  but  for 
the  fact  that  the  wound  where  it  leaves  its 
poison  opens  the  fountain  from  which  it 
draws  its  nourishment. 

Beings  of  this  kind  can  be  useful  if  they 
will  only  find  their  appropriate  sphere, 
which  is  not  literature,  but  that  circle  of 
rough-and-tumble  political  life  where  the 
fine-fibred  men  are  at  a  discount,  where  epi 
thets  find  their  subjects  poison-proof,  and 
the  sting  which  would  be  fatal  to  a  literary 
debutant  only  wakes  the  eloquence  of  the 
pachydermatous  ward-room  politician  to  a 
fiercer  shriek  of  declamation. 

The  Master  got  talking  the  other  day 
about  the  difference  between  races  and  fam 
ilies.  I  am  reminded  of  what  he  said  by 
what  I  have  just  been  saying  myself  about 
coarse-fibred  and  fine-fibred  people. 

-  We  talk  about  a  Yankee,  a  New-Eng- 
lander,  —  he   said,  —  as  if  all  of  'em  were 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  391 

just  the  same  kind,  of  animal.  "  There  is 
knowledge  and  knowledge,"  said  John  Bun- 
yan.  There  are  Yankees  and  Yankees.  Do 
you  know  two  native  trees  called  pitch  pine 
and  white  pine  respectively  ?  Of  course 
you  know  'em.  Well,  there  are  pitch-pine 
Yankees  and  white-pine  Yankees.  We  don't 
talk  about  the  inherited  differences  of  men 
quite  as  freely,  perhaps,  as  they  do  in  the 
Old  World,  but  republicanism  does  n't  al 
ter  the  laws  of  physiology.  We  have  a 
native  aristocracy,  a  superior  race,  just  as 
plainly  marked  by  nature  as  of  a  higher 
and  finer  grade  than  the  common  run  of 
people  as  the  white  pine  is  marked  in  its 
form,  its  stature,  its  bark,  its  delicate  foli 
age,  as  belonging  to  the  nobility  of  the 
forest ;  and  the  pitch  pine,  stubbed,  rough, 
coarse-haired,  as  of  the  plebeian  order.  Only 
the  strange  thing  is  to  see  in  what  a  capri 
cious  way  our  natural  nobility  is  distrib 
uted.  The  last  born  nobleman  I  have  seen, 
I  saw  this  morning  ;  he  was  pulling  a  rope 
that  was  fastened  to  a  Maine  schooner 
loaded  with  lumber.  I  should  say  he  was 
about  twenty  years  old,  as  fine  a  figure  of 
a  young  man  as  you  would  ask  to  see,  and 
with  a  regular  Greek  outline  of  countenance, 
waving  hair,  that  fell  as  if  a  sculptor  had 


392  THE  POET  AT 

massed  it  to  copy,  and  a  complexion  as  rich 
as  a  red  sunset.  I  have  a  notion  that  the 
State  of  Maine  breeds  the  natural  nobility  in 
a  larger  proportion  than  some  other  States, 
but  they  spring  up  in  all  sorts  of  out-of-the- 
way  places.  The  young  fellow  I  saw  this 
morning  had  on  an  old  flannel  shirt,  a  pair 
of  trowsers  that  meant  hard  work,  and  a 
cheap  cloth  cap  pushed  back  on  his  head  so 
as  to  let  the  large  waves  of  hair  straggle 
out  over  his  forehead  ;  he  was  tugging  at  his 
rope  with  the  other  sailors,  but  upon  my 
word  I  don't  think  I  have  seen  a  young 
English  nobleman  of  all  those  whom  I  have 
looked  upon  that  answered  to  the  notion  of 
"  blood  "  so  well  as  this  young  fellow  did. 
I  suppose  if  I  made  such  a  levelling  confes 
sion  as  this  in  public,  people  would  think  I 
was  looking  towards  being  the  labor-reform 
candidate  for  President.  But  I  should  go 
on  and  spoil  my  prospects  by  saying  that  I 
don't  think  the  white-pine  Yankee  is  the 
more  generally  prevailing  growth,  but  rather 
the  pitch-pine  Yankee. 

—  The  Member  of  the  Haouse  seemed  to 
have  been  getting  a  dim  idea  that  all  this 
was  not  exactly  flattering  to  the  huckleberry 
districts.  His  features  betrayed  the  growth 
of  this  suspicion  so  clearly  that  the  Master 


THE  BKEAKFAST-TABLE.  393 

replied  to  his  look  as  if  it  had  been  a  remark. 
[I  need  hardly  say  that  this  particular  mem 
ber  of  the  General  Court  was  a  pitch-pine 
Yankee  of  the  most  thoroughly  characterized 
aspect  and  flavor.] 

—  Yes,  Sir, — the  Master  continued,— 
Sir  being  anybody  that  listened,  —  there  is 
neither  flattery  nor  offence  in  the  views 
which  a  physiological  observer  takes  of  the 
forms  of  life  around  him.  It  won't  do  to 
draw  individual  portraits,  but  the  differences 
of  natural  groups  of  human  beings  are  as 
proper  subjects  of  remark  as  those  of  differ 
ent  breeds  of  horses,  and  if  horses  were 
Houyhnhnms  I  don't  think  they  would  quar 
rel  with  us  because  we  made  a  distinction 
between  a  "  Morgan  "  and  a  "  Messenger." 
The  truth  is,  Sir,  the  lean  sandy  soil  and  the 
droughts  and  the  long  winters  and  the  east- 
winds  and  the  cold  storms,  and  all  sorts  of 
unknown  local  influences  that  we  can't  make 
out  quite  so  plainly  as  these,  have  a  tendency 
to  roughen  the  human  organization  and 
make  it  coarse,  something  as  it  is  with  the 
tree  I  mentioned.  Some  spots  and  some 
strains  of  blood  fight  against  these  influences, 
but  if  I  should  say  right  out  what  I  think, 
it  would  be  that  the  finest  human  fruit,  on 
the  whole,  and  especially  the  finest  women 


394  THE  POET  AT 

that  we  get  in  New  England  are  raised  un 
der  glass. 

—  Good  gracious  !  —  exclaimed  the  Land 
lady,  —  under  glass  !  — 

-  Give  me  cowcumbers  raised  in  the 
open  air,  —  said  the  Capitalist,  who  was  a 
little  hard  of  hearing. 

—  Perhaps,  —  I  remarked,  —  it  might  be 
as  well  if  you  would    explain  this  last  ex 
pression  of  yours.      Raising  human    beings 
under    glass    I    take  to    be   a   metaphorical 
rather  than  a  Hteral  statement  of  your  mean 
ing.  — 

•—  No,  Sir  !  —  replied  the  Master,  with 
energy,  —  I  mean  just  what  I  say,  Sir.  Un 
der  glass,  and  with  a  south  exposure.  Dur 
ing  the  hard  season,  of  course,  —  for  in  the 
heats  of  summer  the  tenderest  hot-house 
plants  are  not  afraid  of  the  open  air.  Pro- 
tection  is  what  the  transplanted  Aryan  re 
quires  in  this  New  England  climate.  Keep 
him,  and  especially  keep  her,  in  a  wide  street 
of  a  well-built  city  eight  months  of  the  year  ; 
good  solid  brick  walls  behind  her,  good 
sheets  of  plate-glass,  with  the  sun  shining 
warm  through  them,  in  front  of  her,  and 
you  have  put  her  in  the  condition  of  the 
pine-apple,  from  the  land  of  which,  and  not 
from  that  of  the  other  kind  of  pine,  her  race 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  395 

started  on  its  travels.  People  don't  know 
what  a  gain  there  is  to  health  by  living  in 
cities,  the  best  parts  of  them  of  course,  for 
we  know  too  well  what  the  worst  parts  are. 
In  the  first  place  you  get  rid  of  the  noxious 
emanations  which  poison  so  many  country 
localities  with  typhoid  fever  and  dysentery  ; 
not  wholly  rid  of  them,  of  course,  but  to  a 
surprising  degree.  Let  me  tell  you  a  doc 
tor's  story.  I  was  visiting  a  Western  city  a 
good  many  years  ago ;  it  was  in  the  autumn, 
the  time  when  all  sorts  of  malarious  diseases 
are  about.  The  doctor  I  was  speaking  of 
took  me  to  see  the  cemetery  just  outside  the 
town,  —  I  don't  knpw  how  much  he  had 
done  to  fill  it,  for  he  did  n't  tell  me,  but  I  '11 
tell  you  what  he  did  say. 

"  Look  round,"  said  the  doctor.  "  There 
is  n't  a  house  in  all  the  ten-mile  circuit  of 
country  you  can  see  over,  where  there  is  n't 
one  person,  at  least,  shaking  with  fever  and 
ague.  And  yet  you  need  n't  be  afraid  of 
carrying  it  away  with  you,  for  as  long  as 
your  home  is  on  a  paved  street  you  are  safe/' 
-  I  think  it  likely  —  the  Master  went  on 
to  say  —  that  my  friend  the  doctor  put  it 
pretty  strongly,  but  there  is  no  doubt  at  all 
that  while  all  the  country  round  was  suffer 
ing  from  intermittent  fever,  the  paved  part 


THE  POST  AT 

of  the  city  was  comparatively  exempted. 
What  do  you  do  when  you  build  a  house  on 
a  damp  soil,  —  and  there  are  damp  soils 
pretty  much  everywhere  ?  Why  you  floor 
the  cellar  with  cement,  don't  you  ?  Well, 
the  soil  of  a  city  is  cemented  all  over,  one 
may  say,  with  certain  qualifications  of  course. 
A  first-rate  city  house  is  a  regular  sanato 
rium.  The  only  trouble  is,  that  the  little 
good-for-nothings  that  come  of  utterly  used- 
up  and  worn-out  stock,  and  ought  to  die, 
can't  die,  to  save  their  lives.  So  they  grow 
up  to  dilute  the  vigor  of  the  race  with  skim- 
milk  vitality.  They  would  have  died,  like 
good  children,  in  most  average  country 
places  ;  but  eight  months  of  shelter  in  a  reg 
ulated  temperature,  in  a  well-sunned  house, 
in  a  duly  moistened  air,  with  good  sidewalks 
to  go  about  on  in  all  weather,  and  four 
months  of  the  cream  of  summer  and  the 
fresh  milk  of  Jersey  cows,  make  the  little 
sham  organizations  —  the  worm-eaten  wind 
falls,  for  that 's  what  they  look  like  —  hang 
on  to  the  boughs  of  life  like  "  froze-n-thaws  "  ; 
regular  struldbrngs  they  come  to  be,  a  good 
many  of  'em. 

—  The  Scarabee's  ear  was  caught  by  that 
queer  word  of  Swift's,  and  he  asked  very 
innocently  what  kind  of  bugs  he  was  speak- 


TUE  BBEAKFAST-TABLE.  397 

ing  of,  whereupon  That  Boy  shouted  out, 
Straddlebugs  !  to  his  own  immense  amuse 
ment  and  the  great  bewilderment  of  the 
Scarabee,  who  only  saw  that  there  was  one 
of  those  unintelligible  breaks  in  the  conver 
sation  which  made  other  people  laugh,  and 
drew  back  his  antennae  as  usual,  perplexed, 
but  not  amused. 

I  do  not  believe  the  Master  had  said  all 
he  was  going  to  say  on  this  subject,  and  of 
course  all  these  statements  of  his  are  more 
or  less  one-sided.  But  that  some  invalids  do 
much  better  in  cities  than  in  the  country  is 
indisputable,  and  that  the  frightful  dysen 
teries  and  fevers  which  have  raged  like  pes 
tilences  in  many  of  our  country  towns  are  al 
most  unknown  in  the  better  built  sections  of 
some  of  our  large  cities  is  getting  to  be  more 
generally  understood  since  our  well-to-do 
people  have  annually  emigrated  in  such 
numbers  from  the  cemented  surface  of  the 
city  to  the  steaming  soil  of  some  of  the  dan 
gerous  rural  districts.  If  one  should  con 
trast  the  healthiest  country  residences  with 
the  worst  city  ones  the  result  would  be  all 
the  other  way,  of  course,  so  that  there  are 
two  sides  to  the  question,  which  we  must  let 
the  doctors  pound  in  their  great  mortar,  in 
fuse  and  strain,  hoping  that  they  will  pre- 


398  THE  POET  AT 

sent  us  with  the  clear  solution  when  they 
have  got  through  these  processes.  One  of 
our  chief  wants  is  a  complete  sanitary  map 
of  every  State  in  the  Union. 

The  balance  of  our  table,  as  the  reader  has 
no  doubt  observed,  has  been  deranged  by  the 
withdrawal  of  the  Man  of  Letters,  so  called, 
and  only  the  side  of  the  deficiency  changed 
by  the  removal  of  the  Young  Astronomer 
into  our  neighborhood.  The  fact  that  there 
was  a  vacant  chair  on  the  side  opposite  us 
had  by  no  means  escaped  the  notice  of  That 
Boy.  He  had  taken  advantage  of  his  oppor 
tunity  and  invited  in  a  schoolmate  whom  he 
evidently  looked  upon  as  a  great  personage. 
This  boy  or  youth  was  a  good  deal  older  than 
himself  and  stood  to  him  apparently  in  the 
light  of  a  patron  and  instructor  in  the  ways 
of  life.  A  very  jaunty,  knowing  young  gen 
tleman  he  was,  good-looking,  smartly  dressed, 
smooth-cheeked  as  yet,  curly-haired,  with  a 
roguish  eye,  a  sagacious  wink,  a  ready  tongue, 
as  I  soon  found  out ;  and  as  I  learned  could 
catch  a  ball  on  the  fly  with  any  boy  of  his 
age;  not 'quarrelsome,  but,  if  he  had  to 
strike,  hit  from  the  shoulder ;  the  pride  of 
his  father  (who  was  a  man  of  property  and 
a  civic  dignitary),  and  answering  to  the 
name  of  Johnny. 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  399 

I  was  a  little  surprised  at  the  liberty  That 
Boy  had  taken  in  introducing  an  extra  pep 
tic  element  at  our  table,  reflecting  as  I  did 
that  a  certain  number  of  avoirdupois  ounces 
of  nutriment  which  the  visitor  would  dispose 
of  corresponded  to  a  very  appreciable  pecu 
niary  amount,  so  that  he  was  levying  a  con 
tribution  upon  our  Landlady  which  she  might 
be  inclined  to  complain  of.  For  the  Caput 
mortuum  (or  dead-head,  in  vulgar  phrase) 
is  apt  to  be  furnished  with  a  Venter  vivus, 
or,  as  we  may  say,  a  lively  appetite.  But 
the  Landlady  welcomed  the  new-comer  very 
heartily. 

—  Why !  how  —  do  —  you  —  do  —  John 
ny?  !    with  the  notes  of  interrogation  and 
of    admiration  both  together,   as   here    rep 
resented. 

Johnny  signified  that  he  was  doing  about 
as  well  as  could  be  expected  under  the  cir 
cumstances,  having  just  had  a  little  differ 
ence  with  a  young  person  whom  he  spoke  of 
as  "  Pewter-jaw  "  (I  suppose  he  had  worn  a 
dentist's  tooth-straightening  contrivance  dur 
ing  his  second  dentition),  which  youth  he 
had  finished  off,  as  he  said,  in  good  shape, 
but  at  the  expense  of  a  slight  —  epistaxis, 
we  will  translate  his  vernacular  expression. 

—  The  three  ladies  all  looked  sympathetic, 


400  THE  POET  AT 

but  there  did  not  seem  to  be  any  great 
occasion  for  it,  as  the  boy  had  come  out  all 
right,  and  seemed  to  be  in  the  best  of  spirits. 
-  And  how  is  your  father  and  your 
mother  ?  —  asked  the  Landlady. 

—  O,  the  Governor  and  the  Head  Centre  ? 
A  1,  both   of   'em.     Prime  order  for   ship 
ping,  —  warranted    to     stand    any    climate. 
The  Governor  says  he  weighs  a  hunderd  and 
seventy-five  pounds.     Got    a  chin-tuft  just 
like  Ed'in  Forrest.      D'dy'  ever  see  Ed'in 
Forrest  play  Metamora  ?     Bully,  I  tell  you  ! 
My  old  gentleman  means  to    be  Mayor  or 
Governor  or  President  or  something  or  other 
before  he  goes  off  the  handle,  you  'd  better 
b'lieve.    He  's  smart,  —  and  I  've  heard  folks 
say  I  take  after  him.  — 

—  Somehow  or    other  I  felt  as  if   I  had 
seen  this  boy  before,  or    known  something 
about    him.      Where  did  he   get   those  ex 
pressions  "  A  1  "  and  "  prime  "  and  so  on  ? 
They  must  have  come  from  somebody  who 
has  been  in  the  retail  dry-goods  business,  or 
something  of  that  nature.     I   have  certain 
vague  reminiscences  that  carry  me  back  to 
the  early  times    of    this  boarding-house.  — 
Johnny.  —  Landlady  knows  his  father  well. 
—  Boarded  with  her,  no  doubt.  —  There  was 
somebody  by  the  name  of  John,  I  remember 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  401 

perfectly  well,  lived  with  her.  I  remember 
both  my  friends  mentioned  him,  one  of  them 
very  often.  I  wonder  if  this  boy  is  n't  a 
son  of  his !  I  asked  the  .Landlady  after 
breakfast  whether  this  was  not,  as  I  had  sus 
pected,  the  son  of  that  former  boarder. 

—  To  be  sure  he  is,  —  she  answered,  — 
and  jest  such  a  good-natur'd  sort  of  creatur' 
as  his  father  was.  I  always  liked  John,  as 
we  used  to  call  his  father.  He  did  love  fun, 
but  he  was  a  good  soul,  and  stood  by  me 
when  I  was  in  trouble,  always.  He  went  into 
business  on  his  own  account  after  a  while, 
and  got  merried,  and  settled  down  into  a 
family  man.  They  tell  me  he  is  an  amazing 
smart  business  man,  —  grown  wealthy,  and 
his  wife's  father  left  her  money.  But  I  can't 
help  calling  him  John,  —  law,  we  never 
thought  of  calling  him  anything  else,  and 
he  always  laughs  and  says,  "  That 's  right." 
This  is  his  oldest  son,  and  everybody  calls 
him  Johnny.  That  Boy  of  ours  goes  to  the 
same  school  with  his  boy,  and  thinks  there 
never  was  anybody  like  him,  —  you  see  there 
was  a  boy  undertook  to  impose  on  our  boy, 
and  Johnny  gave  the  other  boy  a  good  lick 
ing,  and  ever  since  that  he  is  always  wanting 
to  have  Johnny  round  with  him  and  bring 
him  here  with  him,  —  and  when  those  two 


402  THE  POET  AT 

boys  get  together,  there  never  was  boys  that 
was  so  chock  full  of  fun  and  sometimes  mis 
chief,  but  not  very  bad  mischief,  as  those  two 
boys  be.  But  I  like  to  have  him  come  once 
in  a  while  when  there  is  room  at  the  table, 
as  there  is  now,  for  it  puts  me  in  mind  of 
the  old  times,  when  my  old  boarders  was  all 
round  me,  that  I  used  to  think  so  much  of, 
—  not  that  my  boarders  that  I  have  now  a'nt 
very  nice  people,  but  I  did  think  a  dreadful 
sight  of  the  gentleman  that  made  that  first 
book ;  it  helped  me  on  in  the  world  more 
than  ever  he  knew  of,  —  for  it  was  as  good 
as  one  of  them  Brandreth's  pills  advertise 
ments,  and  did  n't  cost  me  a  cent,  and  that 
young  lady  he  merried  too,  she  was  nothing 
but  a  poor  young  schoolma'am  when  she 
come  to  my  house,  and  now  —  and  she  de 
served  it  all  too,  for  she  was  always  just  the 
same,  rich  or  poor,  and  she  is  n't  a  bit 
prouder  now  she  wears  a  cameFs-hair  shawl, 
than  she  was  when  I  used  to  lend  her  a  wool 
len  one  to  keep  her  poor  dear  little  shoulders 
warm  when  she  had  to  go  out  and  it  was  storm 
ing,  —  and  then  there  was  that  old  gentle 
man,  —  I  can't  speak  about  him,  for  I  never 
knew  how  good  he  was  till  his  will  was  opened, 
and  then  it  was  too  late  to  thank  him.  .  .  . 
I  respected  the  feeling  which  caused  the 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  403 

interval  of  silence,  and  found  my  own  eyes 
moistened  as  I  remembered  how  long  it  was 
since  that  friend  of  ours  was  sitting  in  the 
chair  where  I  now  sit,  and  what  a  tidal  wave 
of  change  has  swept  over  the  world  and 
more  especially  over  this  great  land  of  ours, 
since  he  opened  his  lips  and  found  so  many 
kind  listeners. 

The  Young  Astronomer  has  read  us  an 
other  extract  from  his  manuscript.  I  ran 
my  eye  over  it,  and  so  far  as  I  have  noticed 
it  is  correct  enough  in  its  versification.  I 
suppose  we  are  getting  gradually  over  our 
hemispherical  provincialism,  which  allowed 
a  set  of  monks  to  pull  their  hoods  over  our 
eyes  and  tell  us  there  was  no  meaning  in  any 
religious  symbolism  but  our  own.  If  I  am 
mistaken  about  this  advance  I  am  very  glad 
to  print  the  young  man's  somewhat  out 
spoken  lines  to  help  us  in  that  direction. 


WIND-CLOUDS  AND   STAR-DRIFTS. 

'  vi. 

The  time  is  racked  with  birth-pangs ;    every 

hour 

Brings  forth  some  gasping  truth,  and  truth  new 
born 


404  THE  POET  AT 

Looks  a  misshapen  and  untimely  growth, 

The  terror  of  the  household  and  its  shame, 

A  monster  coiling  in  its  nurse's  lap 

That    some    would    strangle,    some    would    only 

starve ; 
But  still  it  breathes,  and  passed  from  hand  to 

hand, 

And  stickled  at  a  hundred  half-clad  breasts, 
Comes  slowly  to  its  stature  and  its  form, 
Calms  the  rough  ridges  of  its  dragon-scales, 
Changes  to  shining  locks  its  snaky  hair, 
And  moves  transfigured  into  angel  guise, 
Welcomed  by  all  that  cursed  its  hour  of  birth, 
And  folded  in  the  same  encircling  arms 
That  cast  it  like  a  serpent  from  their  hold ! 

If  thou  wouldst  live  in  honor,  die  in  peace, 
Have  the  fine  words  the  marble-workers  learn 
To  carve  so  well,  upon  thy  funeral-stone, 
And  earn  a  fair  obituary,  dressed 
In  all  the  many-colored  robes  of  praise, 
Be  deafer  than  the  adder  to  the  cry 
Of  that  same  foundling  truth,  until  it  grows 
To  seemly  favor,  and  at  length  has  won 
The  smiles  of  hard-mouthed  men  and  light-lipped 

dames  ; 

Then  snatch  it  from  its  meagre  nurse's  breast, 
Fold  it  in  silk  and  give  it  food  from  gold ; 
So  shale  thou  share  its  glory  when  at  last 
It  drops  its  mortal  vesture,  and  revealed 
In  all  the  splendor  of  its  heavenly  form, 
Spreads  on  the  startled  air  its  mighty  wings  ! 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  405 

Alas !  how  much  that  seemed  immortal  truth 
That  heroes  fought  for,  martyrs  died  to  save, 
Reveals  its  earth-born  lineage,  growing  old 
And  limping  in  its  march,  its  wings  unplumed, 
Its  heavenly  semblance  faded  like  a  dream  ! 

Here  in  this  painted  casket,  just  unsealed, 
Lies  what  was  once  a  breathing  shape  like  thine, 
Once  loved  as  thou  art  loved  ;  there  beamed  the 

eyes 

That  looked  on  Memphis  in  its  hour  of  pride, 
That  saw  the  walls  of  hundred-gated  Thebes, 
And  all  the  mirrored  glories  of  the  Nile. 
See  how  they  toiled  that  all-consuming  time 
Might  leave  the  frame  immortal  in  its  tomb ; 
Filled  it  with  fragrant  balms  and  odorous  gums 
That  still  diffuse  their  sweetness  through  the  air, 
And  wound  and  wound  with  patient  fold  on  fold 
The  flaxen  bands  thy  hand  has  rudely  torn  ! 
Perchance  thou  yet  canst  see  the  faded  stain 
Of  the  sad  mourner's  tear. 

But  what  is  this  ? 

The  sacred  beetle,  bound  upon  the  breast 
Of  the  blind  heathen  !     Snatch  the  curious  prize, 
Give  it  a  place  among  thy  treasured  spoils 
Fossil  and  relic,  — corals,  encrinites, 
The  fly  in  amber  and  the  fish  in  stone, 
The  twisted  circlet  of  Etruscan  gold, 
Medal,  intaglio,  poniard,  poison-ring,  — - 
Place  for  the  Memphian  beetle  with  thine  hoard  ! 

Ah  !  longer  than  thy  creed  has  blest  the  world 
This  toy,  thus  ravished  from  thy  brother's  breast, 


406  THE  POET  AT 

Was  to  the  heart  of  Mizraim  as  divine, 
As  holy,  as  the  symbol  that  we  lay 
On  the  still  bosom  of  our  white-robed  dead, 
And  raise  above  their  dust  that  all  may  know 
Here  sleeps  an  heir  of  glory.     Loving  friends, 
With  tears  of  trembling  faith  and  choking  sobs, 
And  prayers  to  those  who  judge  of  mortal  deeds, 
Wrapped  this  poor  image  in  the  cerement's  fold 
That  Isis  and  Osiris,  friends  of  man, 
Might  know  their  own  and  claim  the  ransomed 
soul. 

An  idol  ?     Man  was  born  to  worship  such ! 
An  idol  is  an  image  of  his  thought ; 
Sometimes  he  carves  it  out  of  gleaming  stone, 
And  sometimes  moulds  it  out  of  glittering  gold, 
Or  rounds  it  in  a  mighty  frescoed  dome, 
Or  lifts  it  heavenward  in  a  lofty  spire, 
Or  shapes  it  in  a  cunning  frame  of  words, 
Or  pays  his  priest  to  make  it  day  by  day  ; 
For  sense  must  have  its  god  as  well  as  soul ; 
A  new-born  Dian  calls  for  silver  shrines, 
And  Egypt's  holiest  symbol  is  our  own, 
The  sign  we  worship  as  did  they  of  old 
When  Isis  and  Osiris  ruled  the  world. 

Let  us  be  true  to  our  most  subtle  selves, 
We  long  to  have  our  idols  like  the  rest. 
Think !  when  the  men  of  Israel  had  their  God 
Encamped  among  them,  talking  with  their  chief, 
Leading  them  in  the  pillar  of  the  cloud 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  407 

And  watching  o'er  them  in  the  shaft  of  fire, 
They  still  must  have  an  image  ;  still  they  longed 
For  somewhat  of  substantial,  solid  form 
Whereon  to  hang  their  garlands,  and  to  fix 
Their  wandering  thoughts,  and  gain  a  stronger 

hold 

For  their  uncertain  faith,  not  yet  assured 
If  those  same  meteors  of  the  day  and  night 
Were  not  mere  exhalations  of  the  soil. 

Are  we  less  earthly  than  the  chosen  race  ? 
Are  we  more  neighbors  of  the  living  God 
Than  they  who  gathered  manna  every  morn, 
Reaping  where  none  had  sown,   and  heard  the 

voice 

Of  him  who  met  the  Highest  in  the  mount, 
And  brought  them  tables,  graven  with  His  hand  ? 
Yet  these   must  have  their   idol,   brought    their 

gold, 

That  star-browed  Apis  might  be  god  again  ; 
Yea,  from  their  ears  the  women  brake  the  rings 
That  lent  such  splendors  to  the  gypsy  brown 
Of    sunburnt    cheeks,  —  what    more    could    wo 
man  do 

To  show  her  pious  zeal  ?     They  went  astray, 
But  nature  led  them  as  it  leads  us  all. 

We  too,  who  mock  at  Israel's  golden  calf 
And  scoff  at  Egypt's  sacred  scarabee, 
Would  have  our  amulets  to  clasp  and  kiss, 
And  flood  with  rapturous  tears,  and  bear  with  us 
To  be  our  dear  companions  in  the  dust, 
Such  magic  works  an  image  in  our  souls  ' 


408  THE  POET  AT 

Man  is  an  embryo  ;  see  at  twenty  years 
His  bones,  the  columns  that  uphold  his  frame 
Not  yet  cemented,  shaft  and  capital, 
Mere  fragments  of  the  temple  incomplete. 
At  twoscore,  threescore,  is  he  then  full  grown  ? 
Nay,  still  a  child,  and  as  the  little  maids 
Dress  and  undress  their  puppets,  so  he  tries 
To  dress  a  lifeless  creed,  as  if  it  lived, 
And    change    its  raiment  when  the  world   cries 

shame  ! 

We  smile  to  see  our  little  ones  at  play 
So  grave,  so  thoughtful,  with- maternal  care 
Nursing    the    wrisps    of     rags    they    call    their 

babes ; — 

Does  He  not  smile  who  sees  us  with  the  toys 
We  call  by  sacred  names,  and  idly  feign 
To  be  what  we  have  called  them  ?     He  is  still 
The  Father  of  this  helpless  nursery-brood, 
Whose  second  childhood  joins  so  close  its  first, 
That  in  the  crowding,  hurrying  years  between 
We  scarce  have  trained  our  senses  to  their  task 
Before  the  gathering  mist  has  dimmed  our  eyes, 
And  with  our  hollowed  palm  we  help  our  ear, 
And    trace    with  trembling   hand    our    wrinkled 

names, 

And  then  begin  to  tell  our  stories  o'er, 
And  see  —  not  hear  —  the  whispering  lips  that 

say, 
"  You  know ?     Your  father  knew  him.  — 

This  is  he, 
Tottering  and  leaning  on  the  hireling's  arm,"  — 


THE  BEEAKFAST-TABLE.  409 

And  so,  at  length,  disrobed  of  all  that  clad 
The  simple  life  we  share  with  weed  and  worm, 
Go  to  our  cradles,  naked  as  we  came. 


XI. 

I  suppose  there  would  have  been  even 
more  remarks  upon  the  growing  intimacy  of 
the  Young  Astronomer  and  his  pupil,  if  the 
curiosity  of  the  boarders  had  not  in  the 
mean  time  been  so  much  excited  at  the  ap 
parently  close  relation  which  had  sprung  up 
between  the  Eegister  of  Deeds  and  the 
Lady.  It  was  really  hard  to  tell  what  to 
make  of  it.  The  Register  appeared  at  the 
table  in  a  new  coat.  Suspicious.  The  Lady 
was  evidently  deeply  interested  in  him,  if 
we  could  judge  by  the  frequency  and  the 
length  of  their  interviews.  On  at  least  one 
occasion  he  has  brought  a  lawyer  with  him, 
which  naturally  suggested  the  idea  that  there 
were  some  property  arrangements  to  be  at 
tended  to,  in  case,  as  seems  probable  against 
all  reasons  to  the  contrary,  these  two  estima 
ble  persons,  so  utterly  unfitted,  as  one  would 
say,  to  each  other,  contemplated  an  alli 
ance.  It  is  no  pleasure  to  me  to  record  an 
arrangement  of  this  kind.  I  frankly  confess 
I  do  not  know  what  to  make  of  it.  With 


410  THE  POET  AT 

her  tastes  and  breeding,  it  is  the  last  thing 
that  I  should  have  thought  of,  —  her  uniting 
herself  with  this  most  commonplace  and  me 
chanical  person,  who  cannot  even  offer  her 
the  elegances  and  luxuries  to  which  she 
might  seem  entitled  on  changing  her  condi 
tion. 

While  I  was  thus  interested  and  puzzled 
I  received  an  unexpected  visit  from  our 
Landlady.  She  was  evidently  excited,  and 
by  some  event  which  was  of  a  happy  nature, 
for  her  countenance  was  beaming  and  she 
seemed  impatient  to  communicate  what  she 
had  to  tell.  Impatient  or  not,  she  must  wait 
a  moment,  while  I  say  a  word  about  her. 
Our  Landlady  is  as  good  a  creature  as  ever 
lived.  She  is  a  little  negligent  of  grammar 
at  times,  and  will  get  a  wrong  word  now  and 
then  ;  she  is  garrulous,  circumstantial,  asso 
ciates  facts  by  their  accidental  cohesion 
rather  than  by  their  vital  affinities,  is  given 
to  choking  and  tears  on  slight  occasions,  but 
she  has  a  warm  heart,  and  feels  to  her 
boarders  as  if  they  were  her  blood-relations. 

She  began  her  conversation  abruptly.  —  I 
expect  I  'm  a  going  to  lose  one  of  my  board 
ers,  —  she  said. 

-You  'don't    seem  very  unhappy  about 
it,  madam,  — •  I  answered.  —  We  all  took  it 


THE  BEE AKF AST-TABLE.  411 

easily  when  the  person  who  sat  on  our  side 
of  the  table  quitted  us  in  such  a  hurry,  but 
I  do  not  think  there  is  anybody  left  that 
either  you  or  the  boarders  want  to  get  rid  of 
—  unless  it  is  myself,  —  I  added  modestly. 

-  You  !   said  the  Landlady  —  you  !     No 
indeed.    When  I  have  a  quiet  boarder  that 's 
a  small  eater,  I  don't  want  to  lose  him.    You 
don't  make  trouble,  you  don't  find  fault  with 
your  vit  —  [Dr.  Benjamin  had  schooled  his 
parent  on  this  point   and    she    altered  the 
word]  with  your  food,  and  you  know  when 
you  've  had  enough. 

-  I  really  felt  proud  of  this  eulogy,  which 
embraces  the  most  desirable  excellences  of  a 
human  being  in  the  capacity  of  boarder. 

The  Landlady  began  again.  —  Pm  going 
to  lose  —  at  least,  I  suppose  I  shall  —  one 
of  the  best  boarders  I  ever  had,  —  that 
Lady  that 's  been  with  me  so  long. 

—  I  thought  there  was  something  going 
on  between  her  and  the  Register,  —  I  said. 

—  Something  !     I  should  think  there  was  ! 
About  three  months  ago  he  began  making 
her    acquaintance.     I    thought    there    was 
something  particular.     I   didn't  quite   like 
to  watch  'em  very  close,  but  I  could  n't  help 
overhearing  some  of  the  things  he  said  to 
her,  for,  you  see,  he  used  to  follow  her  up 


412  THE  POET  AT 

into  the  parlor,  —  they  talked  pretty  low, 
but  I  could  catch  a  word  now  and  then.  I 
heard  him  say  something  to  her  one  day 
about  "  bettering  her  condition,"  and  she 
seemed  to  be  thinking  very  hard  about  it, 
and  turning  of  it  over  in  her  mind,  and  I 
said  to  myself,  She  does  n't  want  to  take  up 
with  him,  but  she  feels  dreadful  poor,  and 
perhaps  he  has  been  saving  and  has  got 
money  in  the  bank,  and  she  does  n't  want  to 
throw  away  a  chance  of  bettering  herself 
without  thinking  it  over.  But  dear  me, — 
says  I  to  myself,  —  to  think  of  her  walking 
up  the  broad  aisle  into  meeting  alongside  of 
such  a  homely,  rusty-looking  creatur'  as  that ! 
But  there  's  no  telling  what  folks  will  do 
when  poverty  has  got  hold  of  'em. 

—  Well,  so  I  thought  she  was  waiting  to 
make  up  her  mind,  and  he  was  hanging  on 
in  hopes  she  'd  come  round  at  last,  as  women 
do  half  the  time,  for  they  don't  know  their 
own  minds  and  the  wind  blows  both  ways  at 
once  with  'em  as  the  smoke  blows  out  of  the 
tall   chimlies,  —  east   out   of   this  one    and 
west  out  of  that,  —  so  it 's  no  use  looking  at 
'em  to  know  what  the  weather  is. 

—  But  yesterday  she  comes  up  to  me  after 
breakfast,  and  asks  me  to  go  up  with  her 
into  her  little  room.     Now,  says  I  to  myself, 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE,  413 

I  shall  hear  all  about  it.  I  saw  she  looked 
as  if  she  'd  got  some  of  her  trouble  off  her 
mind,  and  I  guessed  that  it  was  settled,  and 
so,  says  I  to  myself,  I  must  wish  her  joy  and 
hope  it 's  all  for  the  best,  whatever  I  think 
about  it. 

—  Well,  she  asked  me  to  set  down,  and 
then  she  begun.     She  said  that  she  was  ex 
pecting  to  have  a  change  in  her  condition  of 
life,  and  had  asked  me  up  so  that  I  might 
have  the  first  news  of  it.     I  am  sure  —  says 
I  —  I    wish  you   both  joy.     Merriage    is  a 
blessed  thing  when  folks  is  well  sorted,  and 
it  is  an  honorable  thing,  and  the  first  mer- 
acle   was    at   the  merriage  in    Canaan.     It 
brings  a  great  sight  of  happiness  with  it,  as 
I  've  had  a  chance  of   knowing,  for  my  — 
hus  — 

The  Landlady  showed  her  usual  tendency 
to  "  break "  from  the  conversational  pace 
just  at  this  point,  but  managed  to  rein  in  the 
rebellious  diaphragm,  and  resumed  her  nar 
rative. 

—  Merriage  !  —  says  she,  —  pray  who  has 
said  anything  about  merriage  ?  — 

- 1  beg  your  pardon,  ma'am,  —  says  I, 
—  I  thought  you  had  spoke  of  changing  your 
condition,  and  I  -  She  looked  so  I  stopped 
right  short. 


414  THE  POET  AT 

—  Don't  say  another  word,  says  she,  but 
jest  listen  to  what  I  am  going  to  tell  you. 

-  My  friend,  says  she,  that  you  have  seen 
with  me  so  often  lately,  was  hunting  among 
his  old  Record  books,  when  all  at  once  he 
come  across  an  old  deed  that  was  made  by 
somebody  that  had  my  family  name.  He 
took  it  into  his  head  to  read  it  over,  and  he 
found  there  was  some  kind  of  a  condition 
that  if  it  wasn't  kept,  the  property  would 
all  go  back  to  them  that  was  the  heirs  of  the 
one  that  gave  the  deed,  and  that  he  found 
out  was  me.  Something  or  other  put  it  into 
his  head,  says  she,  that  the  company  that 
owned  the  property  —  it  was  ever  so  rich  a 
company  and  owned  land  all  round  every 
where  —  had  n't  kept  to  the  conditions.  So 
he  went  to  work,  says  she,  and  hunted 
through  his  books  and  he  inquired  all  round, 
and  he  found  out  pretty  much  all  about  it, 
and  at  last  he  come  to  me  —  it 's  my  boarder, 
you  know,  that  says  all  this  —  and  says  he, 
Ma'am,  says  he,  if  you  have  any  kind  of 
fancy  for  being  a  rich  woman  you  've  only 
got  to  say  so.  I  did  n't  know  what  he 
meant,  and  I  began  to  think,  says  she,  he 
must  be  crazy.  But  he  explained  it  all  to 
me,  how  I  'd  nothing  to  do  but  go  to  court 
and  I  could  get  a  sight  of  property  back. 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  415 

Well,  so  she  went  on  telling  me — there  was 
ever  so  much  more  that  I  suppose  was  all 
plain  enough,  but  I  don't  remember  it  all  — 
only  I  know  my  boarder  was  a  good  deal 
worried  at  first  at  the  thought  of  taking 
money  that  other  people  thought  was  theirs, 
and  the  Register  he  had  to  talk  to  her,  and 
he  brought  a  lawyer  and  he  talked  to  her, 
and  her  friends  they  talked  to  her,  and  the 
upshot  of  it  all  was  that  the  company  agreed 
to  settle  the  business  by  paying  her,  well,  I 
don't  know  just  how  much,  but  enough  to 
make  her  one  of  the  rich  folks  again. 

I  may  as  well  add  here  that,  as  I  have 
since  learned,  this  is  one  of  the  most  impor 
tant  cases  of  releasing  right  of  reentry  for 
condition  broken  which  has  been  settled  by 
arbitration  for  a  considerable  period.  If  I 
am  not  mistaken  the  Register  of  Deeds  will 
get  something  more  than  a  new  coat  out  of 
this  business,  for  the  Lady  very  justly  at 
tributes  her  change  of  fortunes  to  his  saga 
city  and  his  activity  in  following  up  the  hint 
he  had  come  across  by  mere  accident. 

So  my  supernumerary  fellow  -  boarder, 
whom  I  would  have  dispensed  with  as  a 
cumberer  of  the  table,  has  proved  a  minis 
tering  angel  to  one  of  the  personages  whom 
T  most  cared  for. 


416  THE  POET  AT 

One  would  have  thought  that  the  most 
scrupulous  person  need  not  have  hesitated  in 
asserting  an  unquestioned  legal  and  equita 
ble  claim  simply  because  it  had  lain  a  cer 
tain  number  of  years  in  abeyance.  But  be 
fore  the  Lady  could  make  up  her  mind  to 
accept  her  good  fortune  she  had  been  kept 
awake  many  nights  in  doubt  and  inward  de 
bate  whether  she  should  avail  herself  of  her 
rights.  If  it  had  been  private  property,  so 
that  another  person  must  be  made  poor  that 
she  should  become  rich,  she  would  have 
lived  and  died  in  want  rather  than  claim  her 
own.  I  do  not  think  any  of  us  would  like 
to  turn  out  the  possessor  of  a  fine  estate  en 
joyed  for  two  or  three  generations  on  the 
faith  of  unquestioned  ownership  by  making 
use  of  some  old  forgotten  instrument,  which 
accident  had  thrown  in  our  way. 

But  it  was  all  nonsense  to  indulge  in  any 
sentiment  in  a  case  like  this,  where  it  was 
not  only  a  right,  but  a  duty  which  she  owed 
herself  and  others  in  relation  with  her,  to 
accept  what  Providence,  as  it  appeared,  had 
thrust  upon  her,  and  when  110  suffering 
would  be  occasioned  to  anybody.  Common 
sense  told  her  not  to  refuse  it.  So  did  sev 
eral  of  her  rich  friends,  who  remembered 
about  this  time  that  they  had  not  called  upon 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE,  417 

her  for  a  good  while,  and  among  them  Mrs. 
Midas  Goldenrod. 

Never  had  that  lady's  carriage  stood  be 
fore  the  door  of  our  boarding-house  so  long, 
never  had  it  stopped  so  often,  as  since  the 
revelation  which  had  come  from  the  Regis 
try  of  Deeds.  Mrs.  Midas  Goldenrod  was 
not  a  bad  woman,  but  she  loved  and  hated 
in  too  exclusive  and  fastidious  a  way  to  allow 
us  to  consider  her  as  representing  the  high 
est  ideal  of  womanhood.  She  hated  narrow 
ill-ventilated  courts,  where  there  was  nothing 
to  see  if  one  looked  out  of  the  window  but 
old  men  in  dressing-gowns  and  old  women  in 
caps ;  she  hated  little  dark  rooms  with  air 
tight  stoves  in  them ;  she  hated  rusty  bom 
bazine  gowns  and  last  year's  bonnets  ;  she 
hated  gloves  that  were  not  as  fresh  as  new- 
laid  eggs,  and  shoes  that  had  grown  bulgy 
and  wrinkled  in  service  ;  she  hated  common 
crockery-ware  and  teaspoons  of  slight  con 
stitution  ;  she  hated  second  appearances  on 
the  dinner-table  ;  she  hated  coarse  napkins 
and  table-cloths ;  she  hated  to  ride  in  the 
horse-cars ;  she  hated  to  walk  except  for 
short  distances,  when  she  was  tired  of  sitting 
in  her  carriage.  She  loved  with  sincere 
and  undisguised  affection  a  spacious  city 
mansion  and  a  charming  country  villa,  with 


418  THE  POET  AT 

a  seaside  cottage  for  a  couple  of  months  or 
so  ;  she  loved  a  perfectly  appointed  house 
hold,  a  cook  who  was  up  to  all  kinds  of  sal 
mis  and  vol-au-vents,  a  French  maid,  and  a 
stylish-looking  coachman,  and  the  rest  of  the 
people  necessary  to  help  one  live  in  a  decent 
manner ;  she  loved  pictures  that  other  peo 
ple  said  were  first-rate,  and  which  had  at 
least  cost  first-rate  prices ;  she  loved  books 
with  handsome  backs,  in  showy  cases;  she 
loved  heavy  and  richly  wrought  plate ;  fine 
linen  and  plenty  of  it ;  dresses  from  Paris 
frequently,  and  as  many  as  could  be  got  in 
without  troubling  the  custom-house  ;  Russia 
sables  and  Venetian  point-lace  ;  diamonds, 
and  good  big  ones  ;  and,  speaking  generally, 
she  loved  dear  things  in  distinction  from 
cheap  ones,  the  real  article  and  not  the  eco 
nomical  substitute. 

For  the  life  of  me  I  cannot  see  anything 
Satanic  in  all  this.  Tell  me,  Beloved,  only 
between  ourselves,  if  some  of  these  things 
are  not  desirable  enough  in  their  way,  and 
if  you  and  I  could  not  make  up  our  minds 
to  put  up  with  some  of  the  least  objection 
able  of  them  without  any  great  inward 
struggle  ?  Even  in  the  matter  of  ornaments 
there  is  something  to  be  said.  Why  should 
we  be  told  that  the  New  Jerusalem  is  paved 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  419 

with  gold,  and  that  its  twelve  gates  are  each 
of  them  a  pearl,  and  that  its  foundations  are 
garnished  with  sapphires  and  emeralds  and 
all  manner  of  precious  stones,  if  these  are 
not  among  the  most  desirable  of  objects? 
And  is  there  anything  very  strange  in  the 
fact  that  many  a  daughter  of  earth  finds  it 
a  sweet  foretaste  of  heaven  to  wear  about 
her  frail  earthly  tabernacle  these  glittering 
reminders  of  the  celestial  city  ? 

Mrs.  Midas  Goldenrod  was  not  so  entirely 
peculiar  and  anomalous  in  her  likes  and  dis 
likes  ;  the  only  trouble  was  that  she  mixed 
up  these  accidents  of  life  too  much  with  life 
itself,  which  is  so  often  serenely  or  actively 
noble  and  happy  without  reference  to  them. 
She  valued  persons  chiefly  according  to  their 
external  conditions,  and  of  course  the  very 
moment  her  relative,  the  Lady  of  our  break 
fast-table,  began  to  find  herself  in  a  streak  of 
sunshine  she  came  forward  with  a  lighted 
candle  to  show  her  which  way  her  path  lay 
before  her. 

The  Lady  saw  all  this,  how  plainly,  how 
painfully !  yet  she  exercised  a  true  charity 
for  the  weakness  of  her  relative.  Sensible 
people  have  as  much  consideration  for  the 
frailties  of  the  rich  as  for  those  of  the  poor. 
There  is  a  good  deal  of  excuse  for  them. 


420  THE  POET  AT 

Even  you  and  I,  philosophers  and  philan 
thropists  as  we  may  think  ourselves,  have 
a  dislike  for  the  enforced  economies,  proper 
and  honorable  though  they  certainly  are,  of 
those  who  are  two  or  three  degrees  below  us 
in  the  scale  of  agreeable  living. 

—  These  are  very  worthy  persons  you 
have  been  living  with,  my  dear,  —  said  Mrs. 
Midas  —  [the  "  My  dear  "  was  an  expres 
sion  which  had  flowered  out  more  luxuri 
antly  than  ever  before  in  the  new  streak  of 
sunshine]  —  eminently  respectable  parties, 
I  have  no  question,  but  then  we  shall  want 
you  to  move  as  soon  as  possible  to  our  quar 
ter  of  the  town,  where  we  can  see  more  of 
you  than  we  have  been  able  to  in  this  queer 
place. 

It  was  not  very  pleasant  to  listen  to  this 
kind  of  talk,  but  the  Lady  remembered  her 
annual  bouquet,  and  her  occasional  visits 
from  the  rich  lady,  and  restrained  the  incli 
nation  to  remind  her  of  the  humble  sphere 
from  which  she  herself,  the  rich  and  patron 
izing  personage,  had  worked  her  way  up  (if 
it  was  up)  into  that  world  which  she  seemed 
to  think  was  the  only  one  where  a  human 
being  could  find  life  worth  having.  Her 
cheek  flushed  a  little,  however,  as  she  said 
to  Mrs.  Midas  that  she  felt  attached  to  the 


THE  BEE AKF AST-TABLE.  421 

place  where  she  had  been  living  so  long. 
She  doubted,  she  was  pleased  to  say,  whether 
she  should  find  better  company  in  any  circle 
she  was  like  to  move  in  than  she  left  behind 
her  at  onr  boarding-house.  I  give  the  old 
Master  the  credit  of  this  compliment.  If 
one  does  not  agree  with  half  of  what  he  says, 
at  any  rate  he  always  has  something  to  say, 
and  entertains  and  lets  out  opinions  and 
whims  and  notions  of  one  kind  and  another 
that  one  can  quarrel  with  if  he  is  out  of 
humor,  or  carry  away  to  think  about  if  he 
happens  to  be  in  the  receptive  mood. 

But  the  Lady  expressed  still  more  strongly 
the  regret  she  should  feel  at  leaving  her 
young  friend,  our  Scheherezade.  I  cannot 
wonder  at  this.  The  Young  Girl  has  lost 
what  little  playfulness  she  had  in  the  earlier 
months  of  my  acquaintance  with  her.  I  of 
ten  read  her  stories  partly  from  my  interest 
in  her,  and  partly  because  I  find  merit  enough 
in  them  to  deserve  something  better  than  the 
rough  handling  they  got  from  her  coarse- 
fibred  critic,  whoever  he  was.  I  see  evidence 
that  her  thoughts  are  wandering  from  her 
task,  that  she  has  fits  of  melancholy,  and 
bursts  of  tremulous  excitement,  and  that  she 
has  as  much  as  she  can  do  to  keep  herself  at 
all  to  her  stated,  inevitable,  and  sometimes 


422  THE  POET  AT 

almost  despairing  literary  labor.  I  have  had 
some  acquaintance  with  vital  phenomena  of 
this  kind,  and  know  something  of  the  ner 
vous  nature  of  young;  women  and  its  "  mag1- 

J  O  o 

netic  storms,"  if  I  may  borrow  an  expression 
from  the  physicists,  to  indicate  the  perturba 
tions  to  which  they  are  liable.  She  is  more 
in  need  of  friendship  and  counsel  now  than 
ever  before,  it  seems  to  me,  and  I  cannot 
bear  to  think  that  the  Lady,  who  has  become 
like  a  mother  to  her,  is  to  leave  her  to  her 
own  guidance. 

It  is  plain  enough  what  is  at  the  bottom 
of  this  disturbance.  The  astronomical  les 
sons  she  has  been  taking  have  become  inter 
esting  enough  to  absorb  too  much  of  her 
thoughts,  and  she  finds  them  wandering  to 
the  stars  or  elsewhere,  when  they  should  be 
working  quietly  in  the  editor's  harness. 

The  Landlady  has  her  own  views  on  this 
matter  which  she  communicated  to  me  some 
thing  as  follows :  — 

—  I  don't  quite  like  to  tell  folks  what  a 
lucky  place  my  boarding-house  is,  for  fear  I 
should  have  all  sorts  of  people  crowding  in 
to  be  my  boarders  for  the  sake  of  their 
chances.  Folks  come  here  poor  and  they  go 
away  rich.  Young  women  come  here  with 
out  a  friend  in  the  world,  and  the  next  thing 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  423 

that  happens  is  a  gentleman  steps  up  to  'em 
and  says,  "  If  you  '11  take  me  for  your  pard- 
ner  for  life,  I  '11  give  you  a  good  home  and 
love  you  ever  so  much  besides  "  ;  and  off 
goes  my  young  lady-boarder  into  a  fine  three- 
story  house,  as  grand  as  the  governor's  wife, 
with  everything  to  make  her  comfortable, 
and  a  husband  to  care  for  her  into  the  bar 
gain.  That 's  the  way  it  is  with  the  young 
ladies  that  comes  to  board  with  me,  ever 
since  the  gentleman  that  wrote  the  first  book 
that  advertised  my  establishment  (and  never 
charged  me  a  cent  for  it  neither)  merried 
the  Schoolma'am.  And  I  think  —  but  that 's 
between  you  and  me  —  that  it 's  going  to  be 
the  same  thing  right  over  again  between  that 
young  gentleman  and  this  young  girl  here 
—  if  she  doos  n't  kill  herself  with  writing  for 
them  newspapers,  —  it 's  too  bad  they  don't 
pay  her  more  for  writing  her  stories,  for  I 
read  one  of  'em  that  made  me  cry  so  the  Doc 
tor —  my  Doctor  Benjamin  —  said,  "  Ma, 
what  makes  your  eyes  look  so  ?  "  and  wanted 
to  rig  a  machine  up  and  look  at  'em,  but  I 
told  him  what  the  matter  was,  and  that  he 
need  n't  fix  up  his  peeking  contrivances  on 
my  account,  —  anyhow  she  's  a  nice  young 
woman  as  ever  lived,  and  as  industrious  with 
that  pen  of  hers  as  if  she  was  at  work  with 


424  THE  rOET  AT 

a  sewing-machine,  —  and  there  ain't  much 
difference,  for  that  matter,  between  sewing 
on  shirts  and  writing  on  stories,  —  one  way 
you  work  with  your  foot,  and  the  other  way 
you  work  with  your  fingers,  but  I  rather 
guess  there  's  more  headache  in  the  stories 
than  there  is  in  the  stitches,  because  you 
don't  have  to  think  quite  so  hard  while  your 
foot 's  going  as  you  do  when  your  fingers  is 
at  work,  scratch,  scratch,  scratch,  scribble* 
scribble,  scribble. 

It  occurred  to  me  that  this  last  suggestion 
of  the  Landlady  was  worth  considering  by 
the  soft-handed,  broadcloth-clad  spouters  to 
the  laboring  classes,  —  so  called  in  distinc 
tion  from  the  idle  people  who  only  contrive 
the  machinery  and  discover  the  processes  and 
lay  out  the  work  and  draw  the  charts  and 
organize  the  various  movements  which  keep 
the  world  going  and  make  it  tolerable.  The 
organ-blower  works  harder  with  his  muscles, 
for  that  matter,  than  the  organ-player,  and 
may  perhaps  be  exasperated  into  thinking 
himself  a  downtrodden  martyr  because  he 
does  not  receive  the  same  pay  for  his  ser 
vices. 

I  will  not  pretend  that  it  needed  the  Land 
lady's  sagacious  guess  about  the  Young  As 
tronomer  and  his  pupil  to  open  my  eyes  to 


TUE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  425 

certain  possibilities,  if  not  probabilities,  in 
that  direction.  Our  Scheherezade  kept  on 
writing  her  stories  according  to  agreement, 
so  many  pages  for  so  many  dollars,  but  some 
of  her  readers  began  to  complain  that  they 
could  not  always  follow  her  quite  so  well  as 
in  her  earlier  efforts.  It  seemed  as  if  she 
must  have  fits  of  absence.  In  one  instance 
her  heroine  began  as  a  blonde  and  finished 
as  a  brunette  ;  not  in  consequence  of  the  use 
of  any  cosmetic,  but  through  simple  inadver 
tence.  At  last  it  happened  in  one  of  her 
stories  that  a  prominent  character  who  had 
been  killed  in  an  early  page,  not  equivocally, 
but  mortally,  definitively  killed,  done  for, 
and  disposed  of,  reappeared  as  if  nothing  had 
happened  towards  the  close  of  her  narrative. 
Her  mind  was  on  something  else,  and  she 
had  got  two  stories  mixed  up  and  sent  her 
manuscript  without  having  looked  it  over. 
She  told  this  mishap  to  the  Lady,  as  some 
thing  she  was  dreadfully  ashamed  of  and 
could  not  possibly  account  for.  It  had  cost 
her  a  sharp  note  from  the  publisher,  and 
would  be  as  good  as  a  dinner  to  some  half- 
starved  Bohemian  of  the  critical  press. 

The  Lady  listened  to  all  this  very  thought 
fully,  looking  at  her  with  great  tenderness, 
and  said,  "  My  poor  child  !  "  Not  another 


426  TIIE  POET  AT 

word  then,  but  her    silence    meant  a  good 
deal. 

When  a  man  holds  his  tongue  it  does  not 
signify  much.  But  when  a  ivoman  dispenses 
with  the  office  of  that  mighty  member,  when 
she  sheathes  her  natural  weapon  at  a  trying 
moment,  it  means  that  she  trusts  to  still 
more  formidable  enginery ;  to  tears  it  may 
be,  a  solvent  more  powerful  than  that  with 
which  Hannibal  softened  the  Alpine  rocks, 
or  to  the  heaving  bosom,  the  sight  of  which 
has  subdued  so  many  stout  natures,  or,  it 
may  be,  to  a  sympathizing,  quieting  look 
which  says  "  Peace,  be  still  I  "  to  the  winds 
and  waves  of  the  little  inland  ocean,  in  a 
language  that  means  more  than  speech. 

While  these  matters  were  going  on  the 
Master  and  I  had  many  talks  on  many  sub 
jects.  He  had  found  me  a  pretty  good  lis 
tener,  for  I  had  learned  that  the  best  way  of 
getting  at  what  was  worth  having  from  him 
was  to  wind  him  up  with  a  question  and  let 
him  run  down  all  of  himself.  It  is  easy  to 
turn  a  good  talker  into  an  insufferable  bore 
by  contradicting  him,  and  putting  questions 
for  him  to  stumble  over,  —  that  is,  if  he  is 
not  a  bore  already,  as  "  good  talkers  "  are 
apt  to  be,  except  now  and  then. 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  427 

We   had    been   discussing    some   knotty 
points  one  morning  when  he  said  all  at  once  : 

—  Come  into  my  library  with  me.    I  want 
to  read  you  some  new  passages  from  an  in 
terleaved  copy  of  my  book.     You  have  n't 
read  the  printed  part  yet.    I  gave  you  a  copy 
of  it,  but   nobody  reads  a  book  that  is  given 
to  him.     Of  course  not.     Nobody  but  a  fool 
expects  him  to.     He  reads  a  little  in  it  here 
and  there,  perhaps,  and  he  cuts  all  the  leaves 
if  he  cares  enough  about  the  writer,  who 
will  be  sure  to  call  on  him  some  day,  and  if 
he  is  left  alone  in  his  library  for  five  min 
utes  will  have  hunted  every  corner  of  it  un 
til  he  has  found   the  book  he  sent,  —  if  it  is 
to  be  found  at  all,  which  does  n't  always 
happen,  if  there  's  a  penal  colony  anywhere 
in  a  garret  or  closet  for  typographical  of 
fenders  and  vagrants. 

—  What  do  you  do  when  you  receive  a 
book  you  don't  want,  from  the  author  ?  — 
said  I. 

—  Give  him  a  good-natured  adjective  or 
two  if  I  can,  and  thank  him,  and  tell  him  I 
am  lying  under  a  sense  of  obligation  to  him. 

—  That  is  as  good  an  excuse  for  lying,  as 
almost  any,  —  I  said. 

-  Yes,  but  look  out  for  the  fellows  that 
send  you  a  copy  of  their  book  to  trap  you 


428  THE  POET  AT 

into  writing  a  bookseller's  advertisement  for 
it.  I  got  caught  so  once,  and  never  heard 
the  end  of  it  and  never  shall  hear  it.  —  He 
took  down  an  elegantly  bound  volume,  on 
opening  which  appeared  a  flourishing  and 
eminently  flattering  dedication  to  himself.  — 
There,  —  said  he,  —  what  could  I  do  less 
than  acknowledge  such  a  compliment  in  po 
lite  terms,  and  hope  and  expect  the  book 
would  prove  successful,  and  so  forth  and  so 
forth?  Well,  I  get  a  letter  every  few 
months  from  some  new  locality  where  the 
man  that  made  that  book  is  covering  the 
fences  with  his  placards,  asking  me  whether 
I  wrote  that  letter  which  he  keeps  in  stereo 
type  and  has  kept  so  any  time  these  dozen 
or  fifteen  years.  Animus  tuus  oculus,  as 
the  freshmen  used  to  say.  If  her  Majesty, 
the  Queen  of  England,  sends  you  a  copy  of 
her  "  Leaves  from  the  Journal  of  Our  Life 
in  the  Highlands,"  be  sure  you  mark  your 
letter  of  thanks  for  it  Private  ! 

We  had  got  comfortably  seated  in  his  li 
brary  in  the  mean  time,  and  the  Master  had 
taken  up  his  book.  I  noticed  that  every 
other  page  was  left  blank,  and  that  he  had 
written  in  a  good  deal  of  new  matter. 

—  I  tell  you  what,  —  he  said,  —  there  's 
so  much  intelligence  about  nowadays  in 


THE  BEE AKF AST-TABLE.  429 

books  and  newspapers  and  talk  that  it  ?s 
mighty  hard  to  write  without  getting  some 
thing  or  other  worth  listening  to  into  your 
essay  or  your  volume.  The  foolishest  book 
is  a  kind  of  leaky  boat  on  a  sea  of  wisdom ; 
some  of  the  wisdom  will  get  in  anyhow. 
Every  now  and  then  I  find  something  in  my 
book  that  seems  so  good  to  me,  I  can  't  help 
thinking  it  must  have  leaked  in.  I  suppose 
other  people  discover  that  it  came  through  a 
leak,  full  as  soon  as  I  do.,  You  must  write 
a  book  or  two  to  find  out  how  much  and  how 
little  you  know  and  have  to  say.  Then  you 
must  read  some  notices  of  it  by  somebody 
that  loves  you  and  one  or  two  by  somebody 
that  hates  you.  You  '11  find  yourself  a  very 
odd  piece  of  property  after  you  've  been 
through  these  experiences.  They  're  trying 
to  the  constitution  ;  I  'm  always  glad  to  hear 
that  a  friend  is  as  well  as  can  be  expected 
after  he  's  had  a  book. 

You  must  n't  think  there  are  no  better 
things  in  these  pages  of  mine  than  the  ones 
I  'm  going  to  read  you,  but  you  may  come 
across  something  here  that  I  forgot  to  say 
when  we  were  talking  over  these  matters. 

He  began,  reading  from  the  manuscript 
portion  of  his  book  : 

-  -  We  find  it  hard  to  get  and  to  keep  any 


430  THE  POET  AT 

private  property  in  thought.  Other  people 
are  all  the  time  saying  the  same  things  we 
are  hoarding  to  say  when  we  get  ready. 
[He  looked  up  from  iris  book  just  here  and 
said,  "  Don't  be  afraid,  I  am  not  going  to 
quote  Pereant"~\  One  of  our  old  boarders 
—  the  one  that  called  himself  "  The  Profes 
sor,"  I  think  it  was  —  said  some  pretty  au 
dacious  things  about  what  he  called  "  path 
ological  piety,"  as  I  remember,  in  one  of  his 
papers.  And  here  comes  along  Mr.  Galton, 
and  shows  in  detail  from  religious  biogra 
phies  that  "  there  is  a  frequent  correlation 
between  an  unusually  devout  disposition  and 
a  weak  constitution."  Neither  of  them  ap 
peared  to  know  that  John  Bunyan  had  got 
at  the  same  fact  long  before  them.  He  tells 
us,  "  The  more  healthy  the  lusty  man  is,  the 
more  prone  he  is  unto  evil."  If  the  converse 
is  true,  no  wonder  that  good  people,  accord 
ing  to  Bunyan,  are  always  in  trouble  and 
terror,  for  he  says, 

"A  Christian  man  is  never  long  at  ease  ; 
When  one  fright  's  gone,  another  doth  him  seize." 

If  iiivalidism  and  the  nervous  timidity  which 
is  apt  to  go  with  it  are  elements  of  spiritual 
superiority,  it  follows  that  pathology  and 
toxicology  should  form  a  most  important 
part  of  a  theological  education,  so  that  a 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  431 

divine  might  know  how  to  keep  a  parish  in 
a  state  of  chronic  bad  health  in  order  that  it 
might  be  virtuous. 

It  is  a  great  mistake  to  think  that  a  man's 
religion  is  going  to  rid  him  of  his  natural 
qualities.  "  Bishop  Hall "  (as  you  may  re 
member  to  have  seen  quoted  elsewhere) 
"  prefers  Nature  before  Grace  in  the  Elec 
tion  of  a  wife,  because,  saith  he,  it  will  be 
a  hard  Task,  where  the  Nature  is  peevish 
and  froward,  for  Grace  to  make  an  entire 
conquest  while  Life  lasteth." 

"Nature"  and  "Grace"  have  been  con 
trasted  with  each  other  in  a  way  not  very  re 
spectful  to  the  Divine  omnipotence.  Kings 
and  queens  reign  "  by  the  Grace  of  God," 
but  a  sweet,  docile,  pious  disposition,  such 
as  is  born  in  some  children  and  grows  up 
with  them,  —  that  congenital  gift  which 
good  Bishop  Hall  would  look  for  in  a  wife, 
—  is  attributed  to  "  Nature."  In  fact 
"  Nature  "  and  "  Grace,"  as  handled  by  the 
scholastics,  are  nothing  more  nor  less  than 
two  hostile  Divinities  in  the  Pantheon  of 
post-classical  polytheism. 

What  is  the  secret  of  the  profound  inter 
est  which  "  Darwinism "  has  excited  in  the 
minds  and  hearts  of  more  persons  than  dare 
to  confess  their  doubts  and  hopes?  It  is 


432  THE  POET  AT 

because  it  restores  "  Nature "  to  its  place 
as  a  true  divine  manifestation.  It  is  that 
it  removes  the  traditional  curse  from  that 
helpless  infant  lying  in  its  mother's  arms. 
It  is  that  it  lifts  from  the  shoulders  of  man 
the  responsibility  for  the  fact  of  death.  It 
is  that,  if  it  is  true,  woman  can  no  longer 
be  taunted  with  having  brought  down  on 
herself  the  pangs  which  make  her  sex  a 
martyrdom.  If  development  upward  is  the 
general  law  of  the  race ;  if  we  have  grown 
by  natural  evolution  out  of  the  cave-man, 
and  even  less  human  forms  of  life,  we  have 
everything  to  hope  from  the  future.  That 
the  question  can  be  discussed  without  of-' 
fence  shows  that  we  are  entering  on  a  new 
era,  a  Revival  greater  than  that  of  Letters, 
the  Revival  of  Humanity. 

The  prevalent  view  of  "  Nature  "  has  been 
akin  to  that  which  long  reigned  with  refer 
ence  to  disease.  This  used  to  be  considered 
as  a  distinct  entity  apart  from  the  processes 
of  life,  of  which  it  is  one  of  the  manifes 
tations.  It  was  a  kind  of  demon  to  be 
attacked  with  things  of  odious  taste  and 
smell ;  to  be  fumigated  out  of  the  system  as 
the  evil  spirit  was  driven  from  the  bridal- 
chamber  in  the  story  of  Tobit.  The  Doctor 
of  earlier  days,  even  as  I  can  remember  him. 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  433 

used  to  exorcise  the  demon  of  disease  with 
recipes  of  odor  as  potent  as  that  of  the  an 
gel's  diabolifuge,  —  the  smoke  from  a  fish's 
heart  and  liver,  duly  burned,  —  "  the  which 
smell  when  the  evil  spirit  had  smelled  he 
fled  into  the  uttermost  parts  of  Egypt." 
The  very  moment  that  disease  passes  into 
the  category  of  vital  processes,  and  is  recog 
nized  as  an  occurrence  absolutely  necessary, 
inevitable,  and  as  one  may  say,  normal 
under  certain  given  conditions  of  constitu 
tion  and  circumstance,  the  medicine-man 
loses  his  half-miraculous  endowments.  The 
mythical  serpent  is  untwined  from  the  staff 
of  Esculapius,  which  thenceforth  becomes  a 
useful  walking-stick,  and  does  not  pretend 
to  be  anything  more. 

Sin,  like  disease,  is  a  vital  process.  It 
is  a  function,  and  not  an  entity.  It  must 
be  studied  as  a  section  of  anthropology.  No 
preconceived  idea  must  be  allowed  to  inter 
fere  with  our  investigation  of  the  deranged 
spiritual  function,  any  more  than  the  old 
ideas  of  demoniacal  possession  must  be  al 
lowed  to  interfere  with  our  study  of  epilepsy. 
Spiritual  pathology  is  a  proper  subject  for 
direct  observation  and  analysis,  like  any  other 
subject  involving  a  series  of  living  actions. 

In  these  living  actions  everything  is  pro- 


434  T1IE  POET  AT 

gressive.  There  are  sudden  changes  of 
character  in  what  is  called  "  conversion  " 
which,  at  first,  hardly  seem  to  come  into 
line  with  the  common  laws  of  evolution. 
But  these  changes  have  been  long  preparing, 
and  it  is  just  as  much  in  the  order  of  nature 
that  certain  characters  should  burst  all  at 
once  from  the  rule  of  evil  propensities,  as 
it  is  that  the  evening  primrose  should  ex 
plode,  as  it  were,  into  bloom  with  audible 
sound,  as  you  may  read  in  Keats's  Endymion, 
or  observe  in  your  own  garden. 

There  is  a  continual  tendency  in  men  to 
fence  in  themselves  and  a  few  of  their  neigh 
bors  who  agree  with  them  in  their  ideas,  as 
if  they  were  an  exception  to  their  race.  We 
must  not  allow  any  creed  or  religion  whatso 
ever  to  confiscate  to  its  own  private  use  and 
benefit  the  virtues  which  belong  to  our  com 
mon  humanity.  The  Good  Samaritan  helped 
his  wounded  neighbor  simply  because  he 
was  a  suffering  fellow-creature.  Do  you 
think  your  charitable  act  is  more  acceptable 
than  the  Good  Samaritan's,  because  you  do 
it  in  the  name  of  Him  who  made  the  mem 
ory  of  that  kind  man  immortal?  Do  you 
mean  that  you  would  not  give  the  cup  of 
cold  water  for  the  sake  simply  and  solely  of 
the  poor,  suffering  fellow-mortal,  as  willingly 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  435 

as  you  now  do,  professing  to  give  it  for  the 
sake  of  Him  who  is  not  thirsty  or  in  need 
of  any  help  of  yours  ?  We  must  ask  ques 
tions  like  this,  if  we  are  to  claim  for  our 
common  nature  what  belongs  to  it. 

The  scientific  study  of  man  is  the  most 
difficult  of  all  branches  of  knowledge.  It 
requires,  in  the  first  place,  an  entire  new 
terminology  to  get  rid  of  that  enormous 
load  of  prejudices  with  which  every  term 
applied  to  the  malformations,  the  functional 
disturbances,  and  the  organic  diseases  of  the 
moral  nature  is  at  present  burdened.  Take 
that  one  word  Sin,  for  instance  :  all  those 
who  have  studied  the  subject  from  nature 
and  not  from  books  know  perfectly  well 
that  a  certain  fraction  of  what  is  so  called 
is  nothing  more  or  less  than  a  symptom  of 
hysteria ;  that  another  fraction  is  the  index 
of  a  limited  degree  of  insanity  ;  that  still 
another  is  the  result  of  a  congenital  tendency 
which  removes  the  act  we  sit  in  judgment 
upon  from  the  sphere  of  self-determination, 
if  not  entirely,  at  least  to  such  an  extent 
that  the  subject  of  the  tendency  cannot  be 
judged  by  any  normal  standard. 

To  study  nature  without  fear  is  possi 
ble,  but  without  reproach,  impossible.  The 
man  who  worships  in  the  temple  of  know- 


436  THE  POET  AT 

ledge  must  carry  his  arms  with  him  as 
our  Puritan  fathers  had  to  do  when  they 
gathered  in  their  first  rude  meeting-houses. 
It  is  a  fearful  thing  to  meddle  with  the  ark 
which  holds  the  mysteries  of  creation.  I 
remember  that  when  I  was  a  child  the  tra 
dition  was  whispered  round  among  us  little 
folks  that  if  we  tried  to  count  the  stars  we 
should  drop  down  dead.  Nevertheless,  the 
stars  have  been  counted  and  the  astronomer 
has  survived.  This  nursery  legend  is  the 
child's  version  of  those  superstitions  which 
would  have  strangled  in  their  cradles  the 
young  sciences  now  adolescent  and  able  to 
take  care  of  themselves,  and  which,  no 
longer  daring  to  attack  these,  are  watching 
with  hostile  aspect  the  rapid  growth  of  the 
comparatively  new  science  of  man. 

The  real  difficulty  of  the  student  of  na 
ture  at  this  time  is  to  reconcile  absolute 
freedom  and  perfect  fearlessness  with  that 
respect  for  the  past,  that  reverence  for  the 
spirit  of  reverence  wherever  we  find  it,  that 
tenderness  for  the  weakest  fibres  by  which 
the  hearts  of  our  fellow-creatures  hold  to 
their  religious  convictions,  which  will  make 
the  transition  from  old  belief  to  a  larger 
light  and  liberty  an  interstitial  change  and 
not  a  violent  mutilation. 


THE  BEEAKFAST-TABLE.  437 

I  remember  once  going  into  a  little  church 
in  a  small  village  some  miles  from  a  great 
European  capital.  The  special  object  of 
adoration  in  this  humblest  of  places  of  wor 
ship  was  a  bambino,  a  holy  infant,  done  in 
wax,  and  covered  with  cheap  ornaments  such 
as  a  little  girl  would  like  to  beautify  her  doll 
with.  Many  a  good  Protestant  of  the  old 
Puritan  type  would  have  felt  a  strong  im 
pulse  to  seize  this  "  idolatrous  "  figure  and 
dash  it  to  pieces  on  the  stone  floor  of  the 
little  church.  But  one  must  have  lived 
awhile  among  simple-minded  pious  Catholics 
to  know  what  this  poor  waxen  image  and 
the  whole  baby-house  of  bamblnos  mean  for 
a  humble,  unlettered,  unimaginative  peas 
antry.  He  will  find  that  the  true  office  of 
this  eidolon  is  to  fix  the  mind  of  the  wor 
shipper,  and  that  in  virtue  of  the  devotional 
thoughts  it  has  called  forth  so  often  for  so 
many  years  in  the  mind  of  that  poor  old 
woman  who  is  kneeling  before  it,  it  is  no 
longer  a  wax  doll  for  her,  but  has  undergone 
a  transubstantiation  quite  as  real  as  that  of 
the  Eucharist.  The  moral  is  that  we  must 
not  roughly  smash  other  people's  idols  be 
cause  we  know,  or  think  we  know,  that  they 
are  of  cheap  human  manufacture. 

—  Do  you  think  cheap  manufactures  en 
courage  idleness  ?  —  said  I. 


438  THE  POET  AT 

The  Master  stared.  Well  he  might,  for  I 
had  been  getting  a  little  drowsy,  and  wish 
ing  to  show  that  I  had  been  awake  and 
attentive,  asked  a  question  suggested  by 
some  words  I  had  caught,  but  which  showed 
that  I  had  not  been  taking  the  slightest 
idea  from  what  he  was  reading  me.  He 

O 

stared,  shook  his  head  slowly,  smiled  good- 
humoredly,  took  off  his  great  round  specta 
cles,  and  shut  up  his  book. 

—  Sat  prata  biberunt^  —  he  said.  A  sick 
man  that  gets  talking  about  himself,  a  wo 
man  that  gets  talking  about  her  baby,  and 
an  author  that  begins  reading  out  of  his  own 
book,  never  know  when  to  stop.  You  '11 
think  of  some  of  these  things  you  've  been 
getting  half  asleep  over  by  and  by.  I  don't 
want  you  to  believe  anything  I  say ;  I  only 
want  you  to  try  to  see  what  makes  me  be 
lieve  it. 

My  young  friend,  the  Astronomer,  has,  I 
suspect,  been  making  some  addition  to  his 
manuscript.  At  any  rate  some  of  the  lines 
he  read  us  in  the  afternoon  of  this  same  day 
had  never  enjoyed  the  benefit  of  my  revision, 
and  I  think  they  had  but  just  been  written. 
I  noticed  that  his  manner  was  somewhat 
more  excited  than  usual,  and  his  voice  just 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  439 

towards  the  close  a  little  tremulous.  Per 
haps  I  may  attribute  his  improvement  to  the 
effect  of  my  criticisms,  but  whatever  the 
reason,  I  think  these  lines  are  very  nearly 
as  correct  as  they  would  have  been  if  I  had 
looked  them  over. 


WIND-CLOUDS  AND   STAR-DRIFTS. 

VII. 

What  if  a  soul  redeemed,  a  spirit  that  loved 
While  yet  on  earth  and  was  beloved  in  turn, 
And  still  remembered  every  look  and  tone 
Of  that  dear  earthly  sister  who  was  left 
Among  the  unwise  virgins  at  the  gate,  — 
Itself  admitted  with  the  bridegroom's  train,  — 
What  if  this  spirit  redeemed,  amid  the  host 
Of  chanting  angels,  in  some  transient  lull 
Of  the  eternal  anthem,  heard  the  cry 
Of  its  lost  darling,  whom  in  evil  hour 
Some  wilder  pulse  of  nature  led  astray 
And  left  an  outcast  in  a  world  of  fire, 
Condemned  to  be  the  sport  of  cruel  fiends, 
Sleepless,  unpitying,  masters  of  the  skill 
To  wring  the  maddest  ecstasies  of  pain 
From  worn-out  souls  that  only  ask  to  die,  — 
Would  it  not  long  to  leave  the  bliss  of  Heaven,  - 
Bearing  a  little  water  in  its  hand 
To  moisten  those  poor  lips  that  plead  in  vain 


440  THE  POET  AT 

With  Him  we  call  our  Father  ?     Or  is  all 
So  changed  in  such  as  taste  celestial  joy 
They  hear  unmoved  the  endless  wail  of  woe, 
The  daughter  in  the  same  dear  tones  that  hushed 
Her  cradled  slumbers  ;  she  who  once  had  held 
A  babe  upon  Ler  bosom  from  its  voice 
Hoarse  with  its  cry  of  anguish,  yet  the  same  ? 

No  !  not  in  ages  when  the  Dreadful  Bird 
Stamped   his   huge   footprints,   and   the    Fearful 

Beast 

Strode  with  the  flesh  about  those  fossil  bones 
We  build  to  mimic  life  with  pygmy  hands,  — 
Not  in  those  earliest  days  when  men  ran  wild 
And  gashed  each  other  with  their  knives  of  stone, 
When  their  low  foreheads  bulged  in  ridgy  brows 
And  their  flat  hands  were  callous  in  the  palm 
With  walking  in  the  fashion  of  their  sires, 
Grope  as  they  might  to  find  a  cruel  god 
To  work  their  will  on  such  as  human  wrath 
Had  wrought  its  worst  to  torture,  and  had  left 
With  rage  unsated,  white  and  stark  and  cold, 
Could  hate  have  shaped  a  demon  more  malign 
Than  him  the  dead  men  mummied  in  their  creed 
And  taught  their  trembling  children  to  adore ! 

Made  in  his  image  I      Sweet  and  gracious  souls 
Dear  to  my  heart  by  nature's  fondest  names, 
Is  not  your  memory  still  the  precious  mould 
That  lends  its  form  to  Him  who  hears  my  prayer  ? 
Thus  only  I  behold  him,  like  to  them, 
Long-suffering,  gentle,  ever  slow  to  wrath, 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  441 

If  wrath  it  be  that  only  wounds  to  heal, 
Ready  to  meet  the  wanderer  ere  he  reach 
The  door  he  seeks,  forgetful  of  his  sin, 
Longing  to  clasp  him  in  a  father's  arms, 
And  seal  his  pardon  with  a  pitying  tear ! 

Four  gospels  tell  their  story  to  mankind, 
And  none  so  full  of  soft,  caressing  words 
That  bring  the  Maid  of  Bethlehem  and  her  Babe 
Before  our  tear-dimmed  eyes,  as  his  who  learned 
In  the  meek  service  of  his  gracious  art 
The  tones  which  like  the  medicinal  balms 
That  calm  the  sufferer's  anguish,  soothe  our  souls. 
—  0  that  the  loving  woman,  she  who  sat 
So  long  a  listener  at  her  Master's  feet, 
Had  left  us  Mary's  Gospel,  —  all  she  heard 
Too  sweet,  too  subtle  for  the  ear  of  man ! 
Mark  how  the  tender-hearted  mothers  read 
The  messages  of  love  between  the  lines 
Of  the  same  page  that  loads  the  bitter  tongue 
Of  him  who  deals  in  terror  as  his  trade 
With  threatening  words  of  wrath  that  scorch  like 

flame ! 

They  tell  of  angels  whispering  round  the  bed 
Of  the  sweet  infant  smiling  in  its  dream, 
Of  lambs  enfolded  in  the  Shepherd's  arms, 
Of  Him  who  blessed  the  children ;  of  the  land 
Where  crystal  rivers  feed  unfading  flowers, 
Of  cities  golden-paved  with  streets  of  pearl, 
Of  the  white  robes  the  winged  creatures  wear, 


442  THE  POET  AT 

The  crowns    and    harps  from   whose   melodious 

strings 
One  long,  sweet  anthem  flows  forevermore  ! 

-  We  too  had  human  mothers,  even  as  Thou, 
Whom  we  have  learned  to  worship  as  remote 
From  mortal  kindred,  wast  a  cradled  babe. 
The  milk  of  woman  filled  our  branching  veins, 
She  lulled  us  with  her  tender  nursery-song, 
And  folded  round  us  her  untiring  arms, 
While  the  first  unremembered  twilight  year 
Shaped  us  to  conscious  being ;  still  we  feel 
Her  pulses  in  our  own,  —  too  faintly  feel ; 
Would   that    the    heart  of    woman  warmed  our 

creeds ! 

Not  from  the  sad-eyed  hermit's  lonely  cell, 
Not  from  the  conclave  where  the  holy  men 
Glare  on  each  other,  as  with  angry  eyes 
They  battle  for  God's  glory  and  their  own, 
Till,  sick  of  wordy  strife,  a  show  of  hands 
Fixes  the  faith  of  ages  yet  unborn,  — 
Ah,  not  from  these  the  listening  soul  can  hear 
The  Father's  voice  that  speaks  itself  divine ! 
Love  must  be  still  our  Master  ;  till  we  learn 
What  he  can  teach  us  of  a  woman's  heart, 
AVe  know  not  His,  whose  love  embraces  all. 


There  are  certain  nervous  conditions  pe 
culiar  to  women  in  which  the  common  effects 
of  poetry  and  of  music  upon  their  sensibili 
ties  are  strangely  exaggerated.  It  was  not 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  443 

perhaps  to  be  wondered  at  that  Oftavia 
fainted  when  Virgil  in  reading  from  his  great 
poem  came  to  the  line  beginning  Tu  Marcel- 
lus  eris.  It  is  not  hard  to  believe  the  story 
told  of  one  of  the  two  Davidson  sisters,  that 
the  singing  of  some  of  Moore's  plaintive  mel 
odies  would  so  impress  her  as  almost  to  take 
away  the  faculties  of  sense  and  motion.  But 
there  must  have  been  some  special  cause  for 
the  singular  nervous  state  into  which  this 

O 

reading  threw  the  young  girl,  our  Schehere- 
zade.  She  was  doubtless  tired  with  over 
work  and  troubled  with  the  thought  that  she 
was  not  doing  herself  justice,  and  that  she 
was  doomed  to  be  the  helpless  prey  of  some 
of  those  corbies  who  not  only  pick  out  cor 
bies'  eyes,  but  find  no  other  diet  so  nutri 
tious  and  agreeable. 

Whatever  the  cause  may  have  been,  her 
heart  heaved  tumultuously,  her  color  came 
and  went,  and  though  she  managed  to  avoid 
a  scene  by  the  exercise  of  all  her  self-control, 
I  watched  her  very  anxiously,  for  I  was  afraid 
she  would  have  had  a  hysteric  turn,  or  in  one 
of  her  pallid  moments  that  she  would  have 
fainted  and  fallen  like  one  dead  before  us. 

I  was  very  glad,  therefore,  when  evening 
came,  to  find  that  she  was  going  out  for  a 
lesson  on  the  stars.  I  knew  the  open  air 


444  THE  POET  AT 

was  what  she  needed,  and  I  thought  the  walk 
would  do  her  good,  whether  she  made  any 
new  astronomical  acquisitions  or  not. 

It  was  now  late  in  the  autumn,  and  the 
trees  were  pretty  nearly  stripped  of  their 
leaves.  There  was  no  place  so  favorable  as 
the  Common  for  the  study  of  the  heavens. 
The  skies  were  brilliant  with  stars,  and  the 
air  was  just  keen  enough  to  remind  our  young 
friends  that  the  cold  season  was  at  hand. 
They  wandered  round  for  a  while,  and  at 
last  found  themselves  under  the  Great  Elm, 
drawn  thither,  no  doubt,  by  the  magnetism 
it  is  so  well  known  to  exert  over  the  natives 
of  its  own  soil  and  those  who  have  often  been 
under  the  shadow  of  its  outstretched  arms. 
The  venerable  survivor  of  its  contemporaries 
that  flourished  in  the  days  when  Blackstone 
rode  beneath  it  on  his  bull  was  now  a  good 
deal  broken  by  age,  yet  not  without  marks 
of  lusty  vitality.  It  had  been  wrenched  and 
twisted  and  battered  by  so  many  scores  of 
winters  that  some  of  its  limbs  were  crippled 
and  many  of  its  joints  were  shaky,  and  but 
for  the  support  of  the  iron  braces  that  lent 
their  strong  sinews  to  its  more  infirm  mem 
bers  it  would  have  gone  to  pieces  in  the  first 
strenuous  northeaster  or  the  first  sudden  and 
violent  gale  from  the  southwest.  But  there 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  445 

it  stood,  and  there  it  stands  as  yet,  —  though 
its  obituary  was  long  ago  written  after  one 
of  the  terrible  storms  that  tore  its  branches, 
—  leafing  out  hopefully  in  April  as  if  it  were 
trying  in  its  dumb  language  to  lisp  "Our 
Father,"  and  dropping  its  slender  burden 
of  foliage  in  October  as  softly  as  if  it  were 
whispering  Amen  ! 

Not  far  from  the  ancient  and  monumental 
tree  lay  a  small  sheet  of  water,  once  agile 
with  life  and  vocal  with  evening  melodies, 
but  now  stirred  only  by  the  swallow  as  he 
dips  his  wing,  or  by  the  morning  bath  of  the 
English  sparrows,  those  high-headed,  thick- 
bodied,  full-feeding,  hot-tempered  little  John 
Bulls  that  keep  up  such  a  swashing  and 
swabbing  and  spattering  round  all  the  water 
basins,  one  might  think  from  the  fuss  they 
make  about  it  that  a  bird  never  took  a  bath 
here  before,  and  that  they  were  the  mission 
aries  of  ablution  to  the  unwashed  Western 
world. 

There  are  those  who  speak  lightly  of  this 
small  aqueous  expanse,  the  eye  of  the  sacred 
enclosure,  which  has  looked  unwinking  on 
the  happy  faces  of  so  many  natives  and  the 
curious  features  of  so  many  strangers.  The 
music  of  its  twilight  minstrels  has  long 
ceased,  but  their  memory  lingers  like  an  echo 


446  THE  POET  AT 

in  the  name  it  bears.  Cherish  it,  inhabitants 
of  the  two-hilled  city,  once  three-hilled ;  ye 
who  have  said  to  the  mountain,  "  Remove 
hence,"  and  turned  the  sea  into  dry  land ! 
May  no  contractor  fill  his  pockets  by  under 
taking  to  fill  thee,  thou  granite-girdled  lake 
let,  or  drain  the  civic  purse  by  drawing  off 
thy  waters  !  For  art  thou  not  the  Palladium 
of  our  Troy  ?  Didst  thou  not,  like  the  Di 
vine  image  which  was  the  safeguard  of  Ilium, 
fall  from  the  skies,  and  if  the  Trojan  could 
look  with  pride  upon  the  heaven-descended 
form  of  the  Goddess  of  Wisdom,  cannot  he 
who  dwells  by  thy  shining  oval  look  in  that 
mirror  and  contemplate  Himself,  —  the  Na 
tive  of  Boston  ? 

There  must  be  some  fatality  which  carries 
our  young  men  and  maidens  in  the  direction 
of  the  Common  when  they  have  anything 
very  particular  to  exchange  their  views 
about.  At  any  rate  I  remember  two  of  our 
young  friends  brought  up  here  a  good  many 
years  ago,  and  I  understand  that  there  is  one 
path  across  the  enclosure  which  a  young  man 
must  not  ask  a  young  woman  to  take  with 
him  unless  he  means  business,  for  an  action 
will  hold  for  breach  of  promise,  if  she  con 
sents  to  accompany  him,  and  he  chooses  to 
forget  his  obligations. 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  447 

Our  two  young1  people  stood  at  the  western 
edge  of  the  little  pool,  studying  astronomy 
in  the  reflected  firmament.  The  Pleiades 
were  trembling  in  the  wave  before  them,  and 
the  three  great  stars  of  Orion,  —  for  these 
constellations  were  both  glittering  in  the 
eastern  sky. 

"  There  is  no  place  too  humble  for  the 
glories  of  heaven  to  shine  in,"  she  said. 

"  And  their  splendor  makes  even  this  lit 
tle  pool  beautiful  and  noble,"  he  answered. 
"  Where  is  the  light  to  come  from  that  is  to 
do  as  much  for  our  poor  human  lives  ?  " 

A  simple  question  enough,  but  the  young 
girl  felt  her  color  change  as  she  answered, 
"From  friendship,  I  think." 

—  Grazing  only  as  yet,  —  not  striking 
full,  —  hardly  hitting  at  all,  —  but  there 
are  questions  and  answers  that  come  so  very 
near,  the  wind  of  them  alone  almost  takes 
the  breath  away. 

There  was  an  interval  of  silence.  Two 
young  persons  can  stand  looking  at  water 
for  a  long  time  without  feeling  the  necessity 
of  speaking.  Especially  when  the  water  is 
alive  with  stars  and  the  young  persons  are 
thoughtful  and  impressible.  The  water 
seems  to  do  half  the  thinking  while  one  is 
looking  at  it ;  its  movements  are  felt  in  the 


448  THE  POET  AT 

brain  very  much  like  thought.  When  I  was 
in  full  training  as  a  flaneur,  I  could  stand 
on  the  Pont  Neuf  with  the  other  experts  in 
the  great  science  of  passive  cerebration  and 
look  at  the  river  for  half  an  hour  with  so 
little  mental  articulation  that  when  I  moved 
on  it  seemed  as  if  my  thinking-marrow  had 
been  asleep  and  was  just  waking  up  re 
freshed  after  its  nap. 

So  the  reader  can  easily  account  for  the 
interval  of  silence.  It  is  hard  to  tell  how 
long  it  would  have  lasted,  but  just  then  a 
lubberly  intrusive  boy  threw  a  great  stone, 
which  convulsed  the  firmament,  —  the  one 
at  their  feet,  I  mean.  The  six  Pleiads  dis 
appeared  as  if  in  search  of  their  lost  sister  ; 
the  belt  of  Orion  was  broken  asunder,  and 
a  hundred  worlds  dissolved  back  into  chaos. 
They  turned  away  and  strayed  off  into  one  of 
the  more  open  paths,  where  the  view  of  the 
sky  over  them  was  unobstructed.  For  some 
reason  or  other  the  astronomical  lesson  did 
not  get  on  very  fast  this  evening. 

Presently  the  young  man  asked  his  pupil : 
-Do  you  know  what  the  constellation 
directly  over  our  heads  is? 

—  Is  it  not  Cassiopea  ?  —  she  asked  a  lit 
tle  hesitatingly. 

—  No,  it  is  Andromeda.     You  ought  not 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  449 

to  have  forgotten  her,  for  I  remember  show 
ing  you  a  double  star,  the  one  in  her  right 
foot,  through  the  equatorial  telescope.  You 
have  not  forgotten  the  double  star,  —  the 
two  that  shone  for  each  other  and  made  a 
little  world  by  themselves  ? 

—  No,     indeed,  —  she      answered,      and 
blushed,  and  felt  ashamed  because  she  had 
said  indeed,  as  if  it  had  been  an  emotional 
recollection. 

The  double-star  allusion  struck  another 
dead  silence.  She  would  have  given  a  week's 
pay  to  any  invisible  attendant  that  would 
have  cut  her  stay-lace. 

At  last :  Do  you  know  the  story  of  An 
dromeda  ?  —  he  said. 

—  Perhaps    I    did    once,   but    suppose    I 
don't  remember  it. 

He  told  her  the  story  of  the  unfortunate 
maiden  chained  to  a  rock  and  waiting  for  a 
sea-beast  that  was  coming  to  devour  her,  and 
how  Perseus  came  and  set  her  free,  and  won 
her  love  with  her  life.  And  then  he  began 
something  about  a  young  man  chained  to  his 
rock,  which  was  a  star-gazer's  tower,  a  prey 
by  turns  to  ambition,  and  lonely  self -con 
tempt  and  unwholesome  scorn  of  the  life  he 
looked  down  upon  after  the  serenity  .of  the 
firmament,  and  endless  questionings  that  led 


450  THE  POET  AT 

him  nowhere,  —  and  now  he  had  only  one 
more  question  to  ask.  He  loved  her.  Would 
she  break  his  chain  ?  —  He  held  both  his 
hands  out  towards  her,  the  palms  together, 
as  if  they  were  fettered  at  the  wrists.  She 
took  hold  of  them  very  gently ;  parted  them 
a  little  ;  then  wider  —  wider  —  and  found 
herself  all  at  once  folded,  unresisting,  in  her 
lover's  arms. 

So  there  was  a  new  double-star  in  the  liv 
ing  firmament.  The  constellations  seemed 
to  kindle  with  new  splendors  as  the  student 
and  the  story-teller  walked  homeward  in 
their  light ;  Alioth  and  Algol  looked  down 
on  them  as  on  the  first  pair  of  lovers  they 
shone  over,  and  the  autumn  air  seemed  full 
of  harmonies  as  when  the  morning  stars 
sang  together. 


XII. 

The  old  Master  had  asked  us,  the  Young 
Astronomer  and  myself,  into  his  library,  to 
hear  him  read  some  passages  from  his  inter 
leaved  book.  We  three  had  formed  a  kind 
of  little  club  without  knowing  it  from  the 
time  when  the  young  man  began  reading 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  451 

those  extracts  from  his  poetical  reveries 
which  I  have  reproduced  in  these  pages. 
Perhaps  we  agreed  in  too  many  things,  — 
I  suppose  if  we  could  have  had  a  good  hard- 
headed,  old-fashioned  New  England  divine 
to  meet  with  us  it  might  have  acted  as  a 
wholesome  corrective.  For  we  had  it  all 
our  own  way;  the  Lady's  kindly  remon 
strance  was  taken  in  good  part,  but  did  not 
keep  us  from  talking  pretty  freely,  and  as 
for  the  Young  Girl,  she  listened  with  the 
tranquillity  and  fearlessness  which  a  very 
simple  trusting  creed  naturally  gives  those 
who  hold  it.  The  fewer  outworks  to  the  cit 
adel  of  belief,  the  fewer  points  there  are  to 
be  threatened  and  endangered. 

The  reader  must  not  suppose  that  I  even 
attempt  to  reproduce  everything  exactly  as 
it  took  place  in  our  conversations,  or  when 
we  met  to  listen  to  the  Master's  prose  or  to 
the  Young  Astronomer's  verse.  I  do  not 
pretend  to  give  all  the  pauses  and  interrup 
tions  by  question  or  otherwise.  I  could  not 
always  do  it  if  I  tried,  but  I  do  not  want  to, 
for  oftentimes  it  is  better  to  let  the  speaker 
or  reader  go  on  continuously,  although  there 
may  have  been  many  breaks  in  the  course 
of  the  conversation  or  reading.  When,  for 
instance,  I  by  and  by  reproduce  what  the 


452  THE  POET  AT 

Landlady  said  to  us,  I  shall  give  it  almost 
without  any  hint  that  it  was  arrested  in  its 
flow  from  time  to  time  by  various  expres 
sions  on  the  part  of  the  hearers. 

I  can  hardly  say  what  the  reason  of  it 
was,  but  it  is  very  certain  that  I  had  a 
vague  sense  of  some  impending  event  as  we 
took  our  seats  in  the  Master's  library.  He 
seemed  particularly  anxious  that  we  should 
be  comfortably  seated,  and  shook  up  the 
cushions  of  the  arm-chairs  himself,  and  got 
them  into  the  right  places. 

Now  go  to  sleep  —  he  said  —  or  listen,  — 
just  which  you  like  best.  But  I  am  going 
to  begin  by  telling  you  both  a  secret. 

Liberavi  animam  mcam.  That  is  the 
meaning  of  my  book  and  of  my  literary  life, 
if  I  may  give  such  a  name  to  that  party-col 
ored  shred  of  human  existence.  I  have  un 
burdened  myself  in  this  book,  and  in  some 
other  pages,  of  what  I  was  born  to  say. 
Many  things  that  I  have  said  in  my  ripe 
days  have  been  aching  in  my  soul  since  I 
was  a  mere  child.  I  say  aching,  because 
they  conflicted  with  many  of  my  inherited 
beliefs,  or  rather  traditions.  I  did  not  know 
then  that  two  strains  of  blood  were  striving 
in  me  for  the  mastery,  —  two  !  twenty,  per 
haps,  —  twenty  thousand,  for  aught  I  know, 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  453 

«=_  but  represented  to  me  by  two,  —  paternal 
and  maternal.  Blind  forces  in  themselves  ; 
shaping  thoughts  as  they  shaped  features 
and  battled  for  the  moulding  of  constitution 
and  the  mingling  of  temperament. 

Philosophy  and  poetry  came  to  me  before 
I  knew  their  names. 

Je  fis  mes  premiers  vers,  sans  savoir  les  e*crire. 

Not  verses  so  much  as  the  stuff  that  verses 
are  made  of.  I  don't  suppose  that  the 
thoughts  which  came  up  of  themselves  in 
my  mind  were  so  mighty  different  from  what 
come  up  in  the  minds  of  other  young  folks. 
And  that 's  the  best  reason  I  could  give  for 
telling  'em.  I  don't  believe  anything  I  've 
written  is  as  good  as  it  seemed  to  me  when 
I  wrote  it,  —  he  stopped,  for  he  was  afraid 
he  was  lying,  —  not  much  that  I  've  written, 
at  any  rate,  —  he  said  —  with  a  smile  at  the 
honesty  which  made  him  qualify  his  state 
ment.  But  I  do  know  this  :  I  have  struck 
a  good  many  chords,  first  and  last,  in  the 
consciousness  of  other  people.  I  confess  to 
a  tender  feeling  for  my  little  brood  of 
thoughts.  When  they  have  been  welcomed 
and  praised  it  has  pleased  me,  and  if  at  any 
time  they  have  been  rudely  handled  and  de- 
spitefully  entreated  it  has  cost  me  a  little 


454  THE  POET  AT 

worry.  I  don't  despise  reputation,  and  I 
should  like  to  be  remembered  as  having  said 
something  worth  lasting  well  enough  to  last. 

But  all  that  is  nothing  to  the  main  com 
fort  I  feel  as  a  writer.  I  have  got  rid  of 
something  my  mind  could  not  keep  to  itself 
and  rise  as  it  was  meant  to  into  higher  re 
gions.  I  saw  the  aeronauts  the  other  day 
emptying  from  the  bags  some  of  the  sand  that 
served  as  ballast.  It  glistened  a  moment  in 
the  sunlight  as  a  slender  shower,  and  then 
was  lost  and  seen  no  more  as  it  scattered  it 
self  unnoticed.  But  the  air-ship  rose  higher 
as  the  sand  was  poured  out,  and  so  it  seems 
to  me  I  have  felt  myself  getting  above  the 
mists  and  clouds  whenever  I  have  lightened 
myself  of  some  portion  of  the  mental  ballast 
I  have  carried  with  me.  Why  should  I 
hope  or  fear  when  I  send  out  my  book  ?  I 
have  had  my  reward,  for  I  have  wrought 
out  my  thought,  I  have  said  my  say,  I  have 
freed  my  soul.  I  can  afford  to  be  forgotten. 

Look  here  !  —  he  said.  I  keep  oblivion 
always  before  me.  —  He  pointed  to  a  singu 
larly  perfect  and  beautiful  trilobite  which 
was  lying  on  a  pile  of  manuscripts.  —  Each 
time  I  fill  a  sheet  of  paper  with  what  I  am 
writing,  I  lay  it  beneath  this  relic  of  a  dead 
world,  and  project  my  thought  forward  into 


BREAKFAST-TABLE.  455 

eternity  as  far  as  this  extinct  crustacean  car 
ries  it  backward.  When  my  heart  beats  too 
lustily  with  vain  hopes  of  being  remembered, 
I  press  the  cold  fossil  against  it  and  it  grows 
calm.  I  touch  my  forehead  with  it,  and  its 
anxious  furrows  grow  smooth.  Our  world, 
too,  with  all  its  breathing  life,  is  but  a  leaf 
to  be  folded  with  the  other  strata,  and  if  I 
am  only  patient,  by  and  by  I  shall  be  just 
as  famous  as  imperious  Caesar  himself,  em 
bedded  with  me  in  a  conglomerate. 

He  began  reading  :  —  "  There  is  no  new 
thing  under  the  sun,"  said  the  Preacher.  He 
would  not  say  so  now,  if  he  should  come  to 
life  for  a  little  while,  and  have  his  photo 
graph  taken,  and  go  up  in  a  balloon,  and 
take  a  trip  by  railroad  and  a  voyage  by  steam 
ship,  and  get  a  message  from  General  Grant 
by  the  cable,  and  see  a  man's  leg  cut  off  with 
out  its  hurting  him.  If  it  did  not  take  his 
breath  away  and  lay  him  out  as  flat  as  the 
Queen  of  Sheba  was  knocked  over  by  the 
splendors  of  his  court,  he  must  have  rivalled 
our  Indians  in  the  nil  admirari  line. 

For  all  that,  it  is  a  strange  thing  to  see 
what  numbers  of  new  things  are  really  old. 
There  are  many  modern  contrivances  that  are 
of  as  early  date  as  the  first  man,  if  not  thou- 


456  THE  POET  AT 

sands  of  centuries  older.  Everybody  knows 
how  all  the  arrangements  of  our  telescopes 
and  microscopes  are  anticipated  in  the  eye, 
and  how  our  best  musical  instruments  are 
surpassed  by  the  larynx.  But  there  are  some 
very  odd  thing's  any  anatomist  can  tell,  show 
ing  how  our  recent  contrivances  are  antici 
pated  in  the  human  body.  In  the  alimentary 
canal  are  certain  pointed  eminences  called 
villi,  and  certain  ridges  called  valvulce  con- 
niventes.  The  makers  of  heating  apparatus 
have  exactly  reproduced  the  first  in  the 
"pot"  of  their  furnaces,  and  the  second  in 
many  of  the  radiators  to  be  seen  in  our  pub 
lic  buildings.  The  object  in  the  body  and 
the  heating  apparatus  is  the  same ;  to  in 
crease  the  extent  of  surface.  —  We  mix  hair 
with  plaster  (as  the  Egyptians  mixed  straw 
with  clay  to  make  bricks)  so  that  it  shall 
hold  more  firmly.  But  before  man  had  any 
artificial  dwelling  the  same  contrivance  of 
mixing  fibrous  threads  with  a  cohesive  sub 
stance  had  been  employed  in  the  jointed  fab 
ric  of  his  own  spinal  column.  India-rubber 
is  modern,  but  the  yellow  animal  substance 
which  is  elastic  like  that,  and  serves  the 
same  purpose  in  the  animal  economy  which 
that  serves  in  our  mechanical  contrivances, 
is  as  old  as  the  mammalia.  The  dome,  the 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  457 

round  and  the  Gothic  arch,  the  groined  roof, 
the  flying  buttress,  are  all  familiar  to  those 
who  have  studied  the  bony  frame  of  man. 
All  forms  of  the  lever  and  all  the  principal 
kinds  of  hinges  are  to  be  met  with  in  our 
own  frames.  The  valvular  arrangements  of 
the  blood-vessels  are  unapproached  by  any 
artificial  apparatus,  and  the  arrangements 
for  preventing  friction  are  so  perfect  that 
two  surfaces  will  play  on  each  other  for  four 
score  years  or  more  and  never  once  trouble 
their  owner  by  catching  or  rubbing  so  as  to 
be  felt  or  heard. 

But  stranger  than  these  repetitions  are  the 
coincidences  one  finds  in  the  manners  and 
speech  of  antiquity  and  our  own  time.  In 
the  days  when  Flood  Ireson  was  drawn  in 
the  cart  by  the  Maenads  of  Marblehead,  that 
fishing  town  had  the  name  of  nurturing  a 
young  population  not  over  fond  of  strangers. 
It  used  to  be  said  that  if  an  unknown  lands 
man  showed  himself  in  the  streets,  the  boys 
would  follow  after  him,  crying, "  Rock  him  ! 
Rock  him  !  He  's  got  a  long-tailed  coat  on  !  " 

Now  if  one  opens  the  Odyssey,  he  will 
find  that  the  Phaeacians,  three  thousand  years 
ago,  were  wonderfully  like  these  youthful 
Marbleheaders.  The  blue-eyed  Goddess  who 
convoys  Ulysses,  under  the  disguise  of  a 


458  THE  POET  AT 

young  maiden  of  the  place,  gives  him  some 
excellent  advice.  "  Hold  your  tongue,"  she 
says,  "  and  don't  look  at  anybody  or  ask  any 
questions,  for  these  are  seafaring  people,  and 
don't  like  to  have  strangers  round  or  any 
body  that  does  not  belong  here." 

Who  would  have   thought  that  the  saucy 
question,  "  Does  your  mother  know  you  're 
out  ?  "  was  the  very  same  that  Horace  ad 
dressed  to  the  bore  who  attacked  him  in  the 
Via  Sacra  ? 

Interpellandi  locus  hie  erat ;  Est  tibi  mater  ? 
Cognati,  queis  te  salvo  est  opus  ? 

And  think  of  the  London  cockney's  prefix  of 
the  letter  h  to  innocent  words  beginning  with 
a  vowel  having  its  prototype  in  the  speech 
of  the  vulgar  Roman,  as  may  be  seen  in  the 
verses  of  Catullus  : 

CAommoda  dicebat,  siquando  coramoda  vellet 

Dicere,  et  Mnsidias  Arrius  insidias. 
Et  turn  mirifice  sperabat  se  esse  locutum, 

Cum  quantum  poterat,  dixerat  Ainsidias  .  .  . 
Hoc  misso  in  Syriam,  requierant  omnibus  aures  .  .  . 

Cum  subito  affertur  nuncius  horribilis ; 
lonios  fluctus,  postquam  illuc  Arrius  isset, 

Jam  non  lonios  esse,  sed  //ionios. 

-  Our  neighbors  of  Manhattan  have  an 
excellent  jest  about  our  crooked  streets  which, 
if  they  were  a  little  more  familiar  with  a  na 
tive  author  of  unquestionable  veracity,  they 


THE  KEEAKF AST-TABLE.  459 

would  strike  out  from  the  letter  of  "Our 
Boston  Correspondent "  where  it  is  a  source 
of  perennial  hilarity.  It  is  worth  while  to 
reprint,  for  the  benefit  of  whom  it  may  con 
cern,  a  paragraph  from  the  authentic  history 
of  the  venerable  Diedrich  Knickerbocker : 

"  The  sage  council,  as  has  been  mentioned 
in  a  preceding  chapter,  not  being  able  to  de 
termine  upon  any  plan  for  the  building  of 
their  city,  —  the  cows,  in  a  laudable  fit  of 
patriotism,  took  it  under  their  peculiar 
charge,  and  as  they  went  to  and  from  pas 
ture,  established  paths  through  the  bushes, 
on  each  side  of  which  the  good  folks  built 
their  houses  ;  which  is  one  cause  of  the  ram 
bling  and  picturesque  turns  and  labyrinths, 
which  distinguish  certain  streets  of  New 
York  at  this  very  day." 

—  When  I  was  a  little  boy  there  came  to 
stay  with  us  for  a  while  a  young  lady  with 
a  singularly  white  complexion.  Now  I  had 
often  seen  the  masons  slacking  lime,  and  I 
thought  it  was  the  whitest  thing  I  had  ever 
looked  upon.  So  I  always  called  this  fail- 
visitor  of  ours  Slacked  Lime.  I  think  she 
is  still  living  in  a  neighboring  State,  and  I 
am  sure  she  has  never  forgotten  the  fanciful 
name  I  gave  her.  But  within  ten  or  a  dozen 
years  I  have  seen  this  very  same  comparison 


460  THE  POET  AT 

going  the  round  of  the  papers,  and  credited 
to  a  Welsh  poet,  David  Ap  Gwyllyni,  or 
something  like  that,  by  name. 

- 1  turned  a  pretty  sentence  enough  in 
one  of  my  lectures  about  finding  poppies 
springing  up  amidst  the  corn ;  as  if  it  had 
been  foreseen  by  nature  that  wherever  there 
should  be  hunger  that  asked  for  food,  there 
would  be  pain  that  needed  relief,  —  and 
many  years  afterwards  I  had  the  pleasure 
of  finding  that  Mistress  Piozzi  had  been  be 
forehand  with  me  in  suggesting  the  same 
moral  reflection. 

—  I  should  like  to  carry  some  of  my 
friends  to  see  a  giant  bee-hive  I  have  discov 
ered.  Its  hum  can  be  heard  half  a  mile, 
and  the  great  white  swarm  counts  its  tens  of 
thousands.  They  pretend  to  call  it  a  plan- 
ing-mill,  but  if  it  is  not  a  bee-hive  it  is  so 
like  one  that  if  a  hundred  people  have  not 
said  so  before  me,  it  is  very  singular  that 
they  have  not.  If  I  wrote  verses  I  would 
try  to  bring  it  in,  and  I  suppose  people 
would  start  up  in  a  dozen  places,  and  say, 
"  O,  that  beehive  simile  is  mine,  —  and  be 
sides,  did  not  Mr.  Bayard  Taylor  call  the 
snowflakes  4  white  bees  '  ?  " 

I  think  the  old  Master  had  chosen  these 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  461 

trivialities  on  purpose  to  amuse  the  Young 
Astronomer  and  myself,  if  possible,  and  so 
make  sure  of  our  keeping  awake  while  he 
went  on  reading,  as  follows : 

—  How  the  sweet  souls  of  all  time  strike 
the  same  note,  the  same  because  it  is  in  uni 
son  with  the  divine  voice  that  sings  to  them  ! 
I  read  in  the  Zend  Avesta,  "No  earthly 
man  with  a  hundred-fold  strength  speaks  so 
much  evil  as  Mithra  with  heavenly  strength 
speaks  good.  No  earthly  man  with  a  hun 
dred-fold  strength  does  so  much  evil  as 
Mithra  with  heavenly  strength  does  good." 

And  now  leave  Persia  and  Zoroaster,  and 

come  down  with  me  to  our  own  New  Enor- 

o 

land  and  one  of  onr  old  Puritan  preachers. 
It  was  in  the  dreadful  days  of  the  Salem 
Witchcraft  delusion  that  one  Jonathan  Sin 
gle  tary,  being  then  in  the  prison  at  Ipswich, 
gave  his  testimony  as  to  certain  fearful  oc 
currences,  —  a  great  noise,  as  of  many  cats 
climbing,  skipping,  and  jumping,  of  throw 
ing  about  of  furniture,  and  of  men  walking 
in  the  chambers,  with  crackling  and  shaking 
as  if  the  house  would  fall  upon  him. 

"  I  was  at  present,"  he  says,  "  something 
affrighted  ;  yet  considering  what  I  had  lately 
heard  made  out  by  Mr.  Mitch  el  at  Cam 
bridge,  that  there  is  more  f»-ood  in  God  than 


462  THE  POET  AT 

there  is  evil  in  sin,  and  that  although  God 
is  the  greatest  good  and  sin  the  greatest  evil, 
yet  the  first  Being  of  evil  cannot  weane  the 
scales  or  overpower  the  first  Being  of  good  : 
so  considering  that  the  authour  of  good  was 
of  greater  power  than  the  ant  hour  of  evil, 
God  was  pleased  of  his  goodness  to  keep  me 
from  being  out  of  measure  frighted." 

I  shall  always  bless  the  memory  of  this 
poor,  timid  creature  for  saving  that  dear  re 
membrance  of  "  Matchless  Mitchel."  How 
many,  like  him,  have  thought  they  were 
preaching  a  new  gospel,  when  they  were 
only  reaffirming  the  principles  which  under 
lie  the  Magna  Charta  of  humanity,  and  are 
common  to  the  noblest  utterances  of  all  the 
nobler  creeds !  But  spoken  by  those  solemn 
lips  to  those  stern,  simple-minded  hearers, 
the  words  I  have  cited  seem  to  me  to  have  a 
fragrance  like  the  precious  ointment  of  spike 
nard  with  which  Mary  anointed  her  Mas 
ter's  feet.  I  can  see  the  little  bare  meeting 
house,  with  the  godly  deacons,  and  the  grave 
matrons,  and  the  comely  maidens,  and  the 
sober  manhood  of  the  village,  with  the  small 
group  of  college  students  sitting  by  them 
selves  under  the  shadow  of  the  awful  Presi 
dential  Presence,  all  listening  to  that  preach 
ing,  which  was,  as  Cotton  Mather  says,  "  as 


THE  BEE AKF AST-TABLE.  463 

a  very  lovely  song  of  one  that  hath  a  pleas 
ant  voice  "  ;  and  as  the  holy  pastor  utters 
those  blessed  words,  which  are  not  of  any 
one  church  or  age,  but  of  all  time,  the  hum 
ble  place  of  worship  is  filled  with  their  per 
fume,  as  the  house  where  Mary  knelt  was 
filled  with  the  odor  of  the  precious  ointment. 

—  The  Master  rose,  as  he  finished  reading 
this  sentence,  and,  walking  to  the  window, 
adjusted  a  curtain  which  he  seemed  to  find  a 
good  deal  of  trouble  in  getting  to  hang  just 
as  he  wanted  it. 

He  came  back  to  his  armchair,  and  began 
reading  again  : 

—  If  men  would  only  open  their  eyes  to 
the  fact  which  stares  them  in  the  face  from 
history,  and  is  made   clear  enough    by  the 
slightest  glance  at  the  condition  of  mankind, 
that  humanity  is  of   immeasurably  greater 
importance  than  their  own  or  any  other  par 
ticular  belief,  they  would  no  more  attempt 
to   make  private   property  of   the  grace  of 
God  than  to  fence  in  the  sunshine  for  their 
own  special  use  and  enjoyment. 

We  are  all  tattoed  in  our  cradles  with  the 
beliefs  of  our  tribe ;  the  record  may  seem 
superficial,  but  it  is  indelible.  You  cannot 
educate  a  man  wholly  out  of  the  superstitious 


464  THE  POET  AT 

fears  which  were  early  implanted  in  his  im~ 
agination  ;  no  matter  how  utterly  his  reason 
may  reject  them,  he  will  still  feel  as  the  fa 
mous  woman  did  about  ghosts,  Je  ny  crois 
pas,  maisje  les  crains,  —  "I  don't  believe  in 
them,  but  I  am  afraid  of  them,  nevertheless." 

—  As  people  grow  older  they  come  at 
length  to  live  so  much  in  memory  that  they 
often  think  with  a  kind  of  pleasure  of  losing 
their  dearest  blessings.  Nothing  can  be  so 
perfect  while  we  possess  it  as  it  will  seem 
when  remembered.  The  friend  we  love  best 
may  sometimes  weary  us  by  his  presence  or 
vex  us  by  his  infirmities.  How  sweet  to 
think  of  him  as  he  will  be  to  us  after  we  have 
outlived  him  ten  or  a  dozen  years  !  Then  we 
can  recall  him  in  his  best  moments,  bid  him 
stay  with  us  as  long  as  we  want  his  com 
pany,  and  send  him  away  when  we  wish  to  be 
alone  again.  One  might  alter  Shenstone's 
well-known  epitaph  to  suit  such  a  case  : — 

Heu  !  quanto  minus  est  cum  te  vivo  versari 
Quam  erit  (vel  esset)  tui  mortui  reminisse  ! 

"  Alas  !  how  much  less  the  delight  of  thy  living-  presence 
Than  will    (or  would)  be   that  of   remembering-  thee 
when  thou  hast  left  us !  " 

I  want  to  stop  here  —  I  the  Poet  —  and 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  465 

put  in  a  few  reflections  of  my  own,  sug 
gested  by  what  I  have  been  giving  the 
reader  from  the  Master's  Book,  and  in  a 
similar  vein. 

—  How  few  things  there  are  that  do  not 
change  their  whole  aspect  in  the  course  of 
a  single  generation  !  The  landscape  around 
us  is  wholly  different.  Even  the  outlines 
of  the  hills  that  surround  us  are  changed 
by  the  creeping  of  the  villages  with  their 
spires  and  school-houses  up  their  sides.  The 
sky  remains  the  same,  and  the  ocean.  A 
few  old  churchyards  look  very  much  as  they 
used  to,  except,  of  course,  in  Boston,  where 
the  gravestones  have  been  rooted  up  and 
planted  in  rows  with  walks  between  them, 
to  the  utter  disgrace  and  ruin  of  our  most 
venerated  cemeteries.  The  Registry  of 
Deeds  and  the  Probate  Office  show  us  the 
same  old  folios,  where  we  can  read  our 
grandfather's  title  to  his  estate  (if  we  had 
a  grandfather  and  he  happened  to  own  any 
thing)  and  see  how  many  pots  and  kettles 
there  were  in  his  kitchen  by  the  inventory 
of  his  personal  property. 

Among  living  people  none  remain  so  long 
unchanged  as  the  actors.  I  can  see  the 
same  Othello  to-day,  if  I  choose,  that  when 
I  was  a  boy  I  saw  smothering  Mrs.  Duff- 


466  THE  POET  AT 

Desdemona  with  the  pillow,  under  the  insti 
gations  of  Mr.  Cooper-Iago.  A  few  stone 
heavier  than  he  was  then,  no  doubt,  but  the 
same  truculent  blackamoor  that  took  by  the 
thr-r-r-oat  the  circumcised  dog  in  Aleppo, 
and  told  us  about  it  in  the  old  Boston  Thea 
tre.  In  the  course  of  a  fortnight,  if  I  care 
to  cross  the  water,  I  can  see  Mademoiselle 
Dejazet  in  the  same  parts  I  saw  her  in  un 
der  Louis  Philippe,  and  be  charmed  by  the 
same  grace  and  vivacity  which  delighted  my 
grandmother  (if  she  was  in  Paris,  and  went 
to  see  her  in  the  part  of  Fanchon  toute  seule 
at  the  Theatre  des  Capudnes)  in  the  days 
when  the  great  Napoleon  was  still  only  First 
Consul. 

The  graveyard  and  the  stage  are  pretty 
much  the  only  places  where  you  can  expect 
to  find  your  friends  as  you  left  them,  five 
and  twenty  or  fifty  years  ago.  —  I  have 
noticed,  I  may  add,  that  old  theatre-goers 
bring  back  the  past  with  their  stories  more 
vividly  than  men  with  any  other  expe 
riences.  There  were  two  old  New-Yorkers 
that  I  used  to  love  to  sit  talking  with  about 
the  stage.  One  was  a  scholar  and  a  writer 
of  note  ;  a  pleasant  old  gentleman,  with  the 
fresh  cheek  of  an  octogenarian  Cupid.  The 
other  not  less  noted  in  his  way,  deep  in  local 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  467 

lore,  large-brained,  full-blooded,  of  some 
what  perturbing  and  tumultuous  presence. 
It  was  good  to  hear  them  talk  of  George 
Frederic  Cooke,  of  Kean,  and  the  lesser 
stars  of  those  earlier  constellations.  Better 
still  to  breakfast  with  old  Samuel  Rogers, 
as  some  of  my  readers  have  done  more  than 
once,  and  hear  him  answer  to  the  question 
who  was  the  best  actor  he  remembered,  "  I 
think,  on  the  whole,  Garrick." 

If  we  did  but  know  how  to  question  these 
charming  old  people  before  it  is  too  late  ! 
About  ten  years,  more  or  less,  after  the  gen 
eration  in  advance  of  our  own  has  all  died 
off,  it  occurs  to  us  all  at  once,  "  There  !  I 
can  ask  my  old  friend  what  he  knows  of 
that  picture,  which  must  be  a  Copley  ;  of 
that  house  and  its  legends  about  which  there 
is  such  a  mystery.  He  (or  she)  must  know 
all  about  that."  Too  late  !  Too  late  ! 

Still,  now  and  then  one  saves  a  reminis 
cence  that  means  a  good  deal  by  means  of  a 
casual  question.  I  asked  the  first  of  those 
two  old  New-Yorkers  the  following  question : 
"Who,  on  the  whole,  seemed  to  you  the 
most  considerable  person  you  ever  met  ?  " 

Now  it  must  be  remembered  that  this  was 
a  man  who  had  lived  in  a  city  that  calls  it 
self  the  metropolis,  one  who  had  been  a 


468  THE  POET  AT 

member  of  the  State  and  the  National  Leg 
islature,  who  had  come  in  contact  with  men 
of  letters  and  men  of  business,  with  politi 
cians  and  members  of  all  the  professions, 
during  a  long  and  distinguished  public  ca 
reer.  I  paused  for  his  answer  with  no  little 
curiosity.  Would  it  be  one  of  the  great 
Ex-Presidents  whose  names  were  known  to 
all  the  world  ?  Would  it  be  the  silver- 
tongued  orator  of  Kentucky  or  the  "  God 
like  "  champion  of  the  Constitution,  our 
New  England  Jupiter  Capitolinus?  Who 
would  it  be? 

u  Take  it  altogether,"  he  answered,  very 
deliberately,  "  I  should  say  Colonel  Elisha 
Williams  was  the  most  notable  personage 
that  I  have  met  with." 

—  Colonel   Elisha   Williams  !     And   who 
might   he    be,  forsooth?     A    gentleman    of 
singular  distinction,  you    may  be    well   as 
sured,  even  though  you  are  not  familiar  with 
his  name ;   but  as  I  am  not  writing  a  bio 
graphical  dictionary,  I  shall  leave  it  to  my 
reader  to  find  out  who  and  what  he  was. 

—  One  would  like  to  live  long  enough  to 
witness  certain  things  which  will  no  doubt 
come  to  pass  by  and   by.     I  remember  that 
when  one  of  our  good  kind-hearted  old  mil- 
/ionnaires  was  growing  very  infirm,  his  limbs 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  469 

failing  him,  and  his  trunk  getting  packed 
with  the  infirmities  which  mean  that  one  is 
bound  on  a  long  journey,  he  said  very  sim 
ply  and  sweetly,  u  I  don't  care  about  living 
a  great  deal  longer,  but  I  should  like  to  live 

long  enough  to  find  out  how  much  old 

(a  many  -  millioned  fellow-citizen)   is 

worth."  And  without  committing  myself  on 
the  longevity-question  I  confess  I  should  like 
to  live  long  enough  to  see  a  few  things  hap 
pen  that  are  like  to  come,  sooner  or  later. 

I  want  to  hold  the  skull  of  Abraham  in 
my  hand.  They  will  go  through  the  Cave  of 
Machpelah  at  Hebron,  I  feel  sure,  in  the 
course  of  a  few  generations  at  the  furthest, 
and  as  Dr.  Robinson  knows  of  nothing  which 
should  lead  us  to  question  the  correctness  of 
the  tradition  which  regards  this  as  the  place 
of  sepulture  of  Abraham  and  the  other  pa 
triarchs,  there  is  no  reason  why  we  may  not 
find  his  mummied  body  in  perfect  preserva 
tion,  if  he  was  embalmed  after  the  Egyptian 
fashion.  I  suppose  the  tomb  of  David  will 
be  explored  by  a  commission  in  due  time, 
and  I  should  like  to  see  the  phrenological 
developments  of  that  great  king  and  divine 
singer  and  warm-blooded  man.  If,  as  seems 
probable,  the  anthropological  section  of  so 
ciety  manages  to  get  round  the  curse  that 


470  THE  POET  AT 

protects  the  bones  of  Shakespeare,  I  should 
like  to  see  the  dome  which  rounded  itself 
over  his  imperial  brain.  —  Not  that  I  am 
what  is  called  a  phrenologist,  but  I  am  curi 
ous  as  to  the  physical  developments  of  these 
fellow-mortals  of  mine,  and  a  little  in  want 
of  a  sensation. 

I  should  like  to  live  long  enough  to  see  the 
course  of  the  Tiber  turned,  and  the  bottom 
of  the  river  thoroughly  dredged.  I  wonder 
if  they  would  find  the  seven-branched  golden 
candlestick  brought  from  Jerusalem  by  Titus, 
and  said  to  have  been  dropped  from  the  Mil- 
vian  bridge.  I  have  often  thought  of  going 
fishing  for  it  some  year  when  I  wanted  a  va 
cation,  as  some  of  my  friends  used  to  go  to 
Ireland  to  fish  for  salmon.  There  was  an 
attempt  of  that  kind,  I  think,  a  few  years 
ago.  We  all  know  how  it  looks  well  enough, 
from  the  figure  of  it  on  the  Arch  of  Titus, 
but  I  should  like  to  "  heft  "  it  in  my  own 
hand,  and  carry  it  home  and  shine  it  up  (ex 
cuse  my  colloquialisms),  and  sit  down  and 
look  at  it,  and  think  and  think  and  think 
until  the  Temple  of  Solomon  built  up  its 
walls  of  hewn  stone  and  its  roofs  of  cedar 
around  me  as  noiselessly  as  when  it  rose,  and 
"  there  was  neither  hammer  nor  axe  nor  any 
tool  of  iron  heard  in  the  house  while  it  was 
in  building." 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  471 

All  this,  you  will  remember,  Beloved,  is  a 
digression  on  my  own  account,  and  I  return 
to  the  old  Master  whom  I  left  smiling  at  his 
own  alteration  of  Shen stone's  celebrated  in 
scription.  He  now  begins  reading  again  : 

-  I  want  it  to  be  understood  that  I  con 
sider  that  a  certain  number  of  persons  are 
at  liberty  to  dislike  me  peremptorily,  with 
out  showing  cause,  and  that  they  give  no 
offence  whatever  in  so  doing. 

If  I  did  not  cheerfully  acquiesce  in  this 
sentiment  towards  myself  on  the  part  of 
others,  I  should  not  feel  at  liberty  to  in 
dulge  my  own  aversions.  I  try  to  cultivate 
a  Christian  feeling  to  all  my  fellow-creatures, 
but  inasmuch  as  I  must  also  respect  truth 
and  honesty,  I  confess  to  myself  a  certain 
number  of  inalienable  dislikes  and  prejudices, 
some  of  which  may  possibly  be  shared  by 
others.  Some  of  these  are  purely  instinctive, 
for  others  I  can  assign  a  reason.  Our  likes 
and  dislikes  play  so  important  a  part  in  the 
Order  of  Things  that  it  is  well  to  see  on  what 
they  are  founded. 

There  are  persons  I  meet  occasionally  who 
are  too  intelligent  by  half  for  my  liking. 
They  know  my  thoughts  beforehand,  and  tell 
me  what  I  was  going  to  say.  Of  course  they 
are  masters  of  all  iny  knowledge,  and  a  good 


472  THE  POET  AT 

deal  besides  ;  have  read  all  the  books  I  have 
read,  and  in  later  editions ;  have  had  all  the 
experiences  I  have  been  through,  and  more 
too.  In  my  private  opinion  every  mother's 
son  of  them  will  lie  at  any  time  rather  than 
confess  ignorance. 

- 1  have  a  kind  of  dread,  rather  than 
hatred,  of  persons  with  a  large  excess  of  vi 
tality  ;  great  feeders,  great  laughers,  great 
story-tellers,  who  come  sweeping  over  their 
company  with  a  huge  tidal  wave  of  animal 
spirits  and  boisterous  merriment.  I  have 
pretty  good  spirits  myself,  and  enjoy  a  little 
mild  pleasantry,  but  I  am  oppressed  and 
extinguished  by  these  great  lusty,  noisy  crea 
tures,  and  feel  as  if  I  were  a  mute  at  a  fu 
neral  when  they  get  into  full  blast. 

—  I  cannot  get  along  much  better  with 
those  drooping,  languid  people,  whose  vital 
ity  falls  short  as  much  as  that  of  the  others 
is  in  excess.  I  have  not  life  enough  for  two  ; 
I  wish  I  had.  It  is  not  very  enlivening  to 
meet  a  fellow-creature  whose  expression  and 
accents  say,  "  You  are  the  hair  that  breaks 
the  camel's  back  of  my  endurance,  you  are 
the  last  drop  that  makes  my  cup  of  woe  run 
over  "  ;  persons  whose  heads  drop  on  one  side 
like  those  of  toothless  infants,  whose  voices 
recall  the  tones  in  which  our  old  snuffling 
choir  used  to  wail  out  the  verses  of 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  473 

"  Life  is  the  time  to  serve  the  Lord." 

—  There  is  another  style  which  does  not 
captivate  me.     I  recognize  an  attempt  at  the 
grand   manner   now   and   then,  in    persons 
who  are  well  enough  in  their  way,  but  of  no 
particular  importance,  socially  or  otherwise. 
Some  family  tradition  of  wealth  or  distinc 
tion  is  apt  to  be  at  the  bottom  of  it,  and  it 
survives  all  the  advantages  that  used  to  set  it 
off.     I  like  family  pride  as  well  as  my  neigh 
bors,  and  respect  the  high-born  fellow-citizen 
whose  progenitors  have  not  worked  in  their 
shirt-sleeves  for  the  last  two  generations  full 
as  much  as   I   ought   to.     But  grand-pere 
oblige  ;  a  person  with  a  known  grandfather 
is  too  distinguished  to  find  it  necessary  to 
put  on  airs.     The  few  Royal  Princes  I  have 
happened  to  know  were  very  easy  people  to 
get  along  with,  and  had  not  half  the  social 
knee-action  I   have   often   seen  in  the  col 
lapsed  dowagers  who  lifted  their  eyebrows  at 
me  in  my  earlier  years. 

—  My  heart  does  not  warm  as  it  should 
do  towards  the  persons,  not  intimates,  who 
are  always  too  glad  to  see  me  when  we  meet 
by  accident,  and    discover  all  at  once  that 
they  have  a  vast  deal  to  unbosom  themselves 
of  to  me. 

—  There  is  one  blameless  person  whom  I 


474  THE  POET  AT 

cannot  love  and  have  no  excuse  for  hating. 
It  is  the  innocent  fellow-creature,  otherwise 
inoffensive  to  me,  whom  I  find  I  have  invol 
untarily  joined  on  turning  a  corner.  I  sup 
pose  the  Mississippi,  which  was  flowing 
quietly  along,  minding  its  own  business, 
hates  the  Missouri  for  coming  into  it  all  at 
once  with  its  muddy  stream.  I  suppose  the 
Missouri  in  like  manner  hates  the  Missis 
sippi  for  diluting  with  its  limpid,  but  insipid 
current  the  rich  reminiscences  of  the  varied 
soils  through  which  its  own  stream  has  wan 
dered.  I  will  not  compare  myself  to  the 
clear  or  the  turbid  current,  but  I  will  own 
that  my  heart  sinks  when  I  find  all  of  a  sud 
den  I  am  in  for  a  corner  confluence,  and  I 
cease  loving  my  neighbor  as  myself  until  I 
can  get  away  from  him. 

—  These  antipathies  are  at  least  weak 
nesses  ;  they  may  be  sins  in  the  eye  of  the 
Recording  Angel.  I  often  reproach  myself 
with  my  wrong-doings.  I  should  like  some 
times  to  thank  Heaven  for  saving  me  from 
some  kinds  of  transgression,  and  even  for 
granting  me  some  qualities  that  if  I  dared  I 
should  be  disposed  to  call  virtues.  I  should 
do  so,  I  suppose,  if  I  did  not  remember  the 
story  of  the  Pharisee.  That  ought  not  to 
hinder  me.  The  parable  was  told  to  illus- 


THE  BEE AKF AST-TABLE.  475 

trate  a  single  virtue,  humility,  and  the  most 
unwarranted  inferences  have  been  drawn 
from  it  as  to  the  whole  character  of  the  two 
parties.  It  seems  not  at  all  unlikely,  but 
rather  probable,  that  the  Pharisee  was  a 
fairer  dealer,  a  better  husband,  and  a  more 
charitable  person  than  the  Publican,  whose 
name  has  come  down  to  us  "  linked  with  one 
virtue,"  but  who  may  have  been  guilty,  for 
aught  that  appears  to  the  contrary,  of  "  a 
thousand  crimes."  Remember  how  we  limit 
the  application  of  other  parables.  The  lord, 
it  will  be  recollected,  commended  the  unjust 
steward  because  he  had  done  wisely.  His 
shrewdness  was  held  up  as  an  example,  but 
after  all  he  was  a  miserable  swindler,  and 
deserved  the  state-prison  as  much  as  many 
of  our  financial  operators.  The  parable  of 
the  Pharisee  and  the  Publican  is  a  perpet 
ual  warning  against  spiritual  pride.  But  it 
must  not  frighten  any  one  of  us  out  of  being 
thankful  that  he  is  not,  like  this  or  that 
neighbor,  under  bondage  to  strong  drink  or 
opium,  that  he  is  not  an  Erie-Railroad  Man 
ager,  and  that  his  head  rests  in  virtuous  calm 
on  his  own  pillow.  If  he  prays  in  the  morn 
ing  to  be  kept  out  of  temptation  as  well  as 
for  his  daily  bread,  shall  he  not  return 
thanks  at  night  that  he  has  not  fallen  into 


476  THE  POET  AT 

sin  as  well  as  that  his  stomach  has  been 
filled?  I  do  not  think  the  poor  Pharisee 
has  ever  had  fair  play,  and  I  am  afraid  a 
good  many  people  sin  with  the  comforting, 
half-latent  intention  of  smiting  their  breasts 
afterwards  and  repeating  the  prayer  of  the 
Publican. 

(^Sensation.) 

This  little  movement  which  I  have  thus 
indicated  seemed  to  give  the  Master  new 
confidence  in  his  audience.  He  turned  over 
several  pages  until  he  came  to  a  part  of  the 
interleaved  volume  where  we  could  all  see 
he  had  written  in  a  passage  of  new  matter 
in  red  ink  as  of  special  interest. 

—  I  told  you,  he  said,  in  Latin,  and  I  re 
peat  it  in  English,  that  I  have  freed  my  soul 
in  these  pages,  —  I  have  spoken  my  mind. 
I  have  read  you  a  few  extracts,  most  of  them 
of  rather  slight  texture,  and  some  of  them, 
you  perhaps  thought,  whimsical.  But  I 
meant,  if  I  thought  you  were  in  the  right 
mood  for  listening  to  it,  to  read  you  some 
paragraphs  which  give  in  small  compass  the 
pith,  the  marrow,  of  all  that  my  experience 
has  taught  me.  Life  is  a  fatal  complaint, 
and  an  eminently  contagious  one.  I  took  it 
early,  as  we  all  do,  and  have  treated  it  all 
along  with  the  best  palliatives  I  could  get 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  477 

hold  of,  inasmuch  as  I  could  find  no  radical 
cure  for  its  evils,  and  have  so  far  managed 
to  keep  pretty  comfortable  under  it. 

It  is  a  great  thing  for  a  man  to  put  the 
whole  meaning  of  his  life  into  a  few  para 
graphs,  if  he  does  it  so  that  others  can  make 
anything  out  of  it.  If  he  conveys  his  wis 
dom  after  the  fashion  of  the  old  alchemists, 
he  may  as  well  let  it  alone.  He  must  talk 
in  very  plain  words,  and  that  is  what  I  have 
done.  You  want  to  know  what  a  certain 
number  of  scores  of  years  have  taught  me 
that  I  think  best  worth  telling.  If  I  had 
half  a  dozen  square  inches  of  paper,  and  one 
penful  of  ink,  and  five  minutes  to  use  them 
in  for  the  instruction  of  those  who  come  af 
ter  me,  what  should  I  put  down  in  writing? 
That  is  the  question. 

Perhaps  I  should  be  wiser  if  I  refused  to 
attempt  any  such  brief  statement  of  the 
most  valuable  lesson  that  life  has  taught  me. 
I  am  by  no  means  sure  that  I  had  not  better 
draw  my  pen  through  the  page  that  holds 
the  quintessence  of  my  vital  experiences, 
and  leave  those  who  wish  to  know  what  it  is 
to  distil  it  themselves  from  my  many  printed 
pages.  But  I  have  excited  your  curiosity, 
and  I  see  that  you  are  impatient  to  hear 
what  the  wisdom,  or  the  folly,  it  may  be,  of 


ITS  THE  POET  AT 

a  life  shows  for,  when  it  is  crowded  into  a 
few  lines  as  the  fragrance  of  a  gardenful  of 
roses  is  concentrated  in  a  few  drops  of  per 
fume. 

-  By  this  time  I  confess  I  was  myself  a 
little  excited.      What  was  he  going  to  tell 
us  ?     The  Young  Astronomer  looked  upon 
him  with  an  eye  as  clear   and   steady  and 
brilliant  as  the  evening  star,  but  I  could  see 
that  he  too  was  a  little  nervous,  wondering 
what  would  come  next. 

The  old  Master  adjusted  his  large  round 
spectacles,  and  began : 

-  It  has  cost  me  fifty  years  to  find  my 
place  in  the  Order  of   Things.     I  had  ex 
plored  all  the  sciences;    I  had  studied  the 
literature  of  all  ages;    I  had  travelled  in 
many  lands  ;  I  had  learned  how  to  follow 
the  working  of  thought  in  men  and  of  sen 
timent  and  instinct  in  women.     I  had  exam 
ined  for  myself  all  the  religions  that  could 
make  out  any  claim  for  themselves.     I  had 
fasted   and    prayed   with  the    monks   of    a 
lonely    convent ;    I    had    mingled   with    the 
crowds  that  shouted  glory  at  camp-meetings  ; 
I  had  listened   to   the  threats  of  Calvinists 
and  the  promises  of   Universalists  ;    I  had 
been  a  devout  attendant  on  a  Jewish  Syna 
gogue  ;    I  was  in   correspondence   with  an 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.         .  479 

intelligent  Buddhist ;  and  I  met  frequently 
with  the  inner  circle  of  Rationalists,  who 
believed  in  the  persistence  of  Force,  and 
the  identity  of  alimentary  substances  with 
virtue,  and  were  reconstructing-  the  universe 
on  this  basis,  with  absolute  exclusion  of  all 
Supernumeraries.  In  these  pursuits  I  had 
passed  the  larger  part  of  my  half -century  of 
existence,  as  yet  with  little  satisfaction.  It 
was  on  the  morning  of  my  fiftieth  birthday 
that  the  solution  of  the  great  problem  I  had 
sought  so  long  came  to  me  as  a  simple  for 
mula,  with  a  few  grand  but  obvious  infer 
ences.  I  will  repeat  the  substance  of  this 
final  intuition : 

The  one  central  fact  in  the  Order  of 
Things  which  solves  all  questions  is  — 

At  this  moment  we  were  interrupted  by  a 
knock  at  the  Master's  door.  It  was  most 
inopportune,  for  he  was  on  the  point  of  the 
great  disclosure,  but  common  politeness  com 
pelled  him  to  answer  it,  and  as  the  step 
which  we  had  heard  was  that  of  one  of  the 
softer-footed  sex,  he  chose  to  rise  from  his 
chair  and  admit  his  visitor. 

This  visitor  was  our  Landlady.  She  was 
dressed  with  more  than  usual  nicety,  and  her 
countenance  showed  clearly  that  she  came 
charged  with  an  important  communication. 


480  THE  POET  AT 

—  1  did  n't  know  there  was  company  with 
you,  —  said  the  Landlady,  —  but  it  's  jest 
as  well.  I  've  got  something  to  tell  my 
boarders  that  I  don't  want  to  tell  them,  and 
if  I  must  do  it,  I  may  as  well  tell  you  all  at 
once  as  one  to  a  time.  I  'm  agoing  to  give 
up  keeping  boarders  at  the  end  of  this  year, 
—  I  mean  come  the  end  of  December. 

She  took  out  a  white  handkerchief,  at 
hand  in  expectation  of  what  was  to  happen, 
and  pressed  it  to  her  eyes.  There  was  an 
interval  of  silence.  The  Master  closed  his 
book  and  laid  it  on  the  table.  The  Young 
Astronomer  did  not  look  as  much  surprised 
as  I  should  have  expected.  I  was  completely 
taken  aback,  —  I  had  not  thought  of  such  a 
sudden  breaking  up  of  our  little  circle. 

When  the  Landlady  had  recovered  her 
composure,  she  began  again : 

The  Lady  that 's  been  so  long  with  me  is 
going  to  a  house  of  her  own,  —  one  she  has 
bought  back  again,  for  it  used  to  belong  to 
her  folks.  It  's  a  beautiful  house,  and  the 
sun  shines  in  at  the  front  windows  all  day 
long.  She  's  going  to  be  wealthy  again,  but 
it  doos  n't  make  any  difference  in  her  ways. 
I  Ve  had  boarders  complain  when  I  was  do 
ing  as  well  as  I  knowed  how  for  them,  but  I 
never  heerd  a  word  from  her  that  was  n't  as 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  481 

pleasant  as  if  she  'd  been  talking  to  the 
Governor's  lady.  I've  knowed  what  it  was 
to  have  women- boarders  that  find  fault,  — 
there  's  some  of  'em  would  quarrel  with  me 
and  everybody  at  my  table ;  they  would 
quarrel  with  the  Angel  Gabriel  if  he  lived 
in  the  house  with  'em,  and  scold  at  him  and 
tell  him  he  was  always  dropping  his  feathers 
round,  if  they  could  n't  find  anything  else  to 
bring  up  against  him. 

Two  other  boarders  of  mine  has  given  me 
notice  that  they  was  expecting  to  leave  come 
the  first  of  January.  I  could  fill  up  their 
places  easy  enough,  for  ever  since  that  first 
book  was  wrote  that  called  people's  attention 
to  my  boarding-house,  I  've  had  more  want 
ing  to  come  than  I  wanted  to  keep. 

But  I  'm  getting  along  in  life,  and  I  ain't 
quite  so  rugged  as  I  used  to  be.  My  daugh 
ter  is  well  settled  and  my  son  is  making  his 
own  living.  I  've  done  a  good  deal  of  hard 
work  in  my  time,  and  I  feel  as  if  I  had  a 
right  to  a  little  rest.  There  's  nobody  knows 
what  a  woman  that  has  the  charge  of  a 
family  goes  through,  but  God  Almighty  that 
made  her.  I  've  done  my  best  for  them  that 
I  loved,  and  for  them  that  was  under  my 
roof.  My  husband  and  my  children  was 
well  cared  for  when  they  lived,  and  he  and 


482  THE  POET  AT 

them  little  ones  that  I  buried  has  white  mar 
ble  head-stones  and  foot-stones,  and  an  iron 
fence  round  the  lot,  and  a  place  left  for  me 
betwixt  him  and  the  .  .  . 

Some  has  always  been  good  to  me,  — 
some  has  made  it  a  little  of  a  strain  to  me 
to  get  along.  When  a  woman's  back  aches 
with  overworking  herself  to  keep  her  house 
in  shape,  and  a  dozen  mouths  are  opening 
at  her  three  times  a  day,  like  them  little 
young  birds  that  split  their  heads  open  so 
you  can  a'most  see  into  their  empty  stom 
achs,  and  one  wants  this  and  another  wants 
that,  and  provisions  is  dear  and  rent  is  high, 
and  nobody  to  look  to,  —  then  a  sharp  word 
cuts,  I  tell  you,  and  a  hard  look  goes  right 
to  your  heart.  I  've  seen  a  boarder  make  a 
face  at  what  I  set  before  him,  when  I  had 
tried  to  suit  him  jest  as  well  as  I  knew  how, 
and  I  have  n't  cared  to  eat  a  thing  myself 
all  the  rest  of  that  day,  and  I  've  laid  awake 
without  a  wink  of  sleep  all  night.  And  then 
when  you  come  down  the  next  morning  all 
the  boarders  stare  at  you  and  wonder  what 
makes  you  so  low-spirited,  and  why  you 
don't  look  as  happy  and  talk  as  cheerful  as 
one  of  them  rich  ladies  that  has  dinner-par 
ties,  where  they  've  nothing  to  do  but  give  a 
few  orders,  and  somebody  comes  and  cooks 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  483 

their  dinner,  and  somebody  else  comes  and 
puts  flowers  on  the  table,  and  a  lot  of  men 
dressed  up  like  ministers  come  and  wait  on 
everybody,  as  attentive  as  undertakers  at  a 
funeral. 

And  that  reminds  me  to  tell  you  that  I  'm 
agoing  to  live  with  my  daughter.  Her  hus 
band  's  a  very  nice  man,  and  when  he  is  n't 
following  a  corpse,  he  's  as  good  company 
as  if  he  was  a  member  of  the  city  council. 
My  son,  he  's  agoing  into  business  with  the 
old  Doctor  he  studied  with,  and  he  's  agoing 
to  board  with  me  at  my  daughter's  for  a 
while,  —  I  suppose  he  '11  be  getting  a  wife 
before  long.  [This  with  a  pointed  look  at 
our  young  friend,  the  Astronomer.] 

It  is  n't  but  a  little  while  longer  that  we 
are  going  to  be  together,  and  I  want  to  say 
to  you  gentlemen,  as  I  mean  to  say  to  the 
others  and  as  I  have  said  to  our  two  ladies, 
that  I  feel  more  obligated  to  you  for  the 
way  you've  treated  me  than  I  know  very 
well  how  to  put  into  words.  Boarders  some 
times  expect  too  much  of  the  ladies  that  pro 
vides  for  them.  Some  days  the  meals  are 
better  than  other  days ;  it  can't  help  being 
so.  Sometimes  the  provision-market  isn't 
well  supplied,  sometimes  the  fire  in  the  cook 
ing-stove  does  n't  burn  so  well  as  it  does 


484  THE  POET  AT 

other  days ;  sometimes  the  cook  is  n't  so 
lucky  as  she  might  be.  And  there  is  board 
ers  who  is  always  laying  in  wait  for  the 
days  when  the  meals  is  not  quite  so  good  as 
they  commonly  be,  to  pick  a  quarrel  with 
the  one  that  is  trying  to  serve  them  so  as 
that  they  shall  be  satisfied.  But  you  've 
all  been  good  and  kind  to  me.  I  suppose 
I  'm  not  quite  so  spry  and  quick-sighted  as 
I  was  a  dozen  years  ago,  when  my  boarder 
wrote  that  first  book  so  many  have  asked 
me  about.  But  now  I  'm  going  to  stop  tak 
ing  boarders.  I  don't  believe  you  '11  think 
much  about  what  I  did  n't  do,  —  because  I 
could  n't,  —  but  remember  that  at  any  rate 
I  tried  honestly  to  serve  you.  I  hope  God 
will  bless  all  that  set  at  my  table,  old  and 
young,  rich  and  poor,  merried  and  single, 
and  single  that  hopes  soon  to  be  merried. 
My  husband  that 's  dead  and  gone  always 
believed  that  we  all  get  to  heaven  sooner  or 
later,  —  and  sence  I  Ve  grown  older  and 
buried  so  many  that  I  've  loved  I  've  come 
to  feel  that  perhaps  I  should  meet  all  of 
them  that  I  've  known  here  —  or  at  least  as 
many  of  'em  as  I  wanted  to  —  in  a  better 
world.  And  though  I  don't  calculate  there 
is  any  boarding-houses  in  heaven,  I  hope  I 
shall  some  time  or  other  meet  them  that  has 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  485 

set  round  my  table  one  year  after  another, 
all  together,  where  there  is  no  fault-finding 
with  the  food  and  no  occasion  for  it,  —  and 
if  I  do  meet  them  and  you  there  —  or  any 
where,  —  if  there  is  anything  I  can  do  for 
you  .  .  . 

.  .  .  Poor  dear  soul !  Her  ideas  had  got 
a  little  mixed,  and  her  heart  was  overflow 
ing,  and  the  white  handkerchief  closed  the 
scene  with  its  timely  and  greatly  needed 
service. 

-  What   a  pity,   I  have  often   thought, 
that  she  came  in  just  at  that  precise  mo 
ment!      For   the   old   Master   was   on   the 
point  of  telling  us,  and  through  one  of  us 
the  reading  world,  —  I  mean  that  fraction 
of  it  which  has  reached  this  point  of  the 
record,  —  at   any  rate,   of  telling  you,  Be 
loved,  through  my  pen,  his   solution  of   a 
great   problem  we   all   have   to   deal  with. 
We  were  some  weeks  longer  together,  but 
he  never   offered  to    continue   his    reading. 
At  length  I  ventured  to  give  him  a  hint  that 
our  young  friend  and  myself  would  both  of 
us  be  greatly  gratified  if   he  would  begin 
reading  from  his  unpublished   page  where 
he  had  left  off. 

-  No,  sir,  —  he  said,  —  better  not,  bet 
ter  not.     That  which  means  so  much  to  me, 


486  THE  POET  AT 

the  writer,  might  be  a  disappointment,  or  at 
least  a  puzzle,  to  you,  the  listener.  Besides, 
if  you  '11  take  my  printed  book  and  be  at 
the  trouble  of  thinking  over  what  it  says, 
and  put  that  with  what  you  've  heard  me 
say,  and  then  make  those  comments  and  re 
flections  which  will  be  suggested  to  a  mind 
in  so  many  respects  like  mine  as  is  your 
own,  —  excuse  my  good  opinion  of  myself, 
—  (It  is  a  high  compliment  to  me,  I  replied) 
you  will  perhaps  find  you  have  the  elements 
of  the  formula  and  its  consequences  which 
I  was  about  to  read  you.  It 's  quite  as  well 
to  crack  your  own  filberts  as  to  borrow  the 
use  of  other  people's  teeth.  I  think  we  will 
wait  awhile  before  we  pour  out  the  Elixir 
Vitce. 

—  To  tell  the  honest  truth,  I  suspect  the 
Master  has  found  out  that  his  formula  does 
not  hold  water  quite  so  perfectly  as  he  was 
thinking,  so  long  as  he  kept  it  to  himself, 
and  never  thought  of  imparting  it  to  any 
body  else.  The  very  minute  a  thought  is 
threatened  with  publicity  it  seems  to  shrink 
towards  mediocrity,  as  I  have  noticed  that 
a  great  pumpkin,  the  wonder  of  a  village, 
seemed  to  lose  at  least  a  third  of  its  dim  en- 
sions  between  the  field  where  it  grew  and 
the  cattle-show  fair-table,  where  it  took  its 


THE  BREAKFAST  TABLE.  487 

place  with  other  enormous  pumpkins  from 
other  wondering  villages.  But  however 
that  may  be,  I  shall  always  regret  that  I 
had  not  the  opportunity  of  judging  for  my 
self  how  completely  the  Master's  formula, 
which,  for  him,  at  least,  seemed  to  have 
solved  the  great  problem,  would  have  accom 
plished  that  desirable  end  for  me. 

The  Landlady's  announcement  of  her  in 
tention  to  give  up  keeping  boarders  was 
heard  with  regret  by  all  who  met  around 
her  table.  The  Member  of  the  Haouse  in 
quired  of  me  whether  I  could  tell  him  if  the 
Lamb  Tahvern  was  kept  well  abaout  these 
times.  He  knew  that  members  from  his 
place  used  to  stop  there,  but  he  hadn't 
heerd  much  abaout  it  of  late  years.  —  I  had 
to  inform  him  that  that  fold  of  rural  inno 
cence  had  long  ceased  offering  its  hospitali 
ties  to  the  legislative  flock.  He  found  ref 
uge  at  last,  I  have  learned,  in  a  great  public 
house  in  the  northern  section  of  the  city, 
where,  as  he  said,  the  folks  all  went  up 
stairs  in  a  rat-trap,  and  the  last  I  heard  of 
him  was  looking  out  of  his  somewhat  ele 
vated  attic-window  in  a  northwesterly  direc 
tion  in  hopes  that  he  might  perhaps  get  a 
sight  of  the  Grand  Monadnock,  a  mountain 
in  New  Hampshire  which  I  have  myself 


488  THE  POET  AT 

seen  from  the  top  of  Bunker  Hill  Monu 
ment. 

The  Member  of  the  Haouse  seems  to  have 
been  more  in  a  hurry  to  find  a  new  resting- 
place  than  the  other  boarders.  By  the  first 
of  January,  however,  our  whole  company 
was  scattered,  never  to  meet  again  around 
the  board  where  we  had  been  so  long  to 
gether. 

The  Lady  moved  to  the  house  where  she 
had  passed  many  of  her  prosperous  years. 
It  had  been  occupied  by  a  rich  family  who 
had  taken  it  nearly  as  it  stood,  and  as  the 
pictures  had  been  dusted  regularly,  and  the 
books  had  never  been  handled,  she  found 
everything  in  many  respects  as  she  had  left 
it,  and  in  some  points  improved,  for  the  rich 
people  did  not  know  what  else  to  do,  and  so 
they  spent  money  without  stint  on  their 
house  and  its  adornments,  by  all  of  which 
she  could  not  help  profiting.  I  do  not  choose 
to  give  the  street  and  number  of  the  house 
where  she  lives,  but  a  great  many  poor  peo 
ple  know  very  well  where  it  is,  and  as  a 
matter  of  course  the  rich  ones  roll  up  to  her 
door  in  their  carriages  by  the  dozen  every 
fine  Monday  while  anybody  is  in  town. 

It  is  whispered  that  our  two  young  folks 
are  to  be  married  before  another  season,  and 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  489 

that  the  Lady  has  asked  them  to  come  and 
stay  with  her  for  a  while.  Our  Schehere- 
zade  is  to  write  no  more  stories.  It  is  aston 
ishing  to  see  what  a  change  for  the  better 
in  her  aspect  a  few  weeks  of  brain-rest  and 
heart's  ease  have  wrought  in  her.  I  doubt 
very  much  whether  she  ever  returns  to  lit 
erary  labor.  The  work  itself  was  almost 
heart-breaking,  but  the  effect  upon  her  of 
the  sneers  and  cynical  insolences  of  the  lit 
erary  rough  who  came  at  her  in  mask  and 
brass  knuckles  was  to  give  her  what  I  fear 
will  be  a  lifelong  disgust  against  any  writ 
ing  for  the  public,  especially  in  any  of  the 
periodicals.  I  am  not  sorry  that  she  should 
stop  writing,  but  I  am  sorry  that  she  should 
have  been  silenced  in  such  a  rude  way.  I 
doubt,  too,  whether  the  Young  Astronomer 
will  pass  the  rest  of  his  life  in  hunting  for 
comets  and  planets.  I  think  he  has  found 
an  attraction  that  will  call  him  down  from 
the  celestial  luminaries  to  a  light  not  less 
pure  and  far  less  remote.  And  I  am  inclined 
to  believe  that  the  best  answer  to  many  of 
those  questions  which  have  haunted  him  and 
found  expression  in  his  verse  will  be  reached 
by  a  very  different  channel  from  that  of 
lonely  contemplation,  —  the  duties,  the  cares, 
the  responsible  reaiities  of  a  life  drawn  out 


490  THE  POET  AT 

of  itself  by  the  power  of  newly  awakened  in 
stincts  and  affections.  The  double  star  was 
prophetic,  —  I  thought  it  would  be. 

The  Register  of  Deeds  is  understood  to 
have  been  very  handsomely  treated  by  the 
boarder  who  owes  her  good  fortune  to  his 
sagacity  and  activity.  He  has  engaged 
apartments  at  a  very  genteel  boarding-house 
not  far  from  the  one  where  we  have  all  been 
living.  The  Salesman  found  it  a  simple 
matter  to  transfer  himself  to  an  establish 
ment  over  the  way  ;  he  had  very  little  to 
move,  and  required  very  small  accommoda 
tions. 

The  Capitalist,  however,  seems  to  have 
felt  it  impossible  to  move  without  ridding 
himself  of  a  part  at  least  of  his  encum 
brances.  The  community  was  startled  by 
the  announcement  that  a  citizen  who  did  not 
wish  his  name  to  be  known  had  made  a  free 
gift  of  a  large  sum  of  money  —  it  was  in 
tens  of  thousands  —  to  an  institution  of  long 
standing  and  high  character  in  the  city  of 
which  he  was  a  quiet  resident.  The  source 
of  such  a  gift  could  not  long  be  kept  secret. 
It  was  our  economical,  not  to  say  parsimo 
nious  Capitalist  who  had  done  this  noble  act, 
and  the  poor  man  had  to  skulk  through  back 
streets  and  keep  out  of  sight,  as  if  he  were 


THE  BEE AKF AST-TABLE.  491 

a  show  character  in  a  travelling  caravan,  to 
avoid  the  acknowledgments  of  his  liberality, 
which  met  him  on  every  hand  and  put  him 
fairly  out  of  countenance. 

That  Boy  has  gone,  in  virtue  of  a  special 
invitation,  to  make  a  visit  of  indefinite 
length  at  the  house  of  the  father  of  the  older 
boy,  whom  we  know  by  the  name  of  Johnny. 
Of  course  he  is  having  a  good  time,  for 
Johnny's  father  is  full  of  fun,  and  tells 
firstrate  stories,  and  if  neither  of  the  boys 
gets  his  brains  kicked  out  by  the  pony,  or 
blows  himself  up  with  gunpowder,  or  breaks 
through  the  ice  and  gets  drowned,  they  will 
have  a  fine  time  of  it  this  winter. 

The  Scarabee  could  not  bear  to  remove 
his  collections,  and  the  old  Master  was 
equally  unwilling  to  disturb  his  books.  It 
was  arranged,  therefore,  that  they  should 
keep  their  apartments  until  the  new  tenant 
should  come  into  the  house,  when,  if  they 
were  satisfied  with  her  management,  they 
would  continue  as  her  boarders. 

The  last  time  I  saw  the  Scarabee  he  was 
still  at  work  on  the  meloe  question.  He 
expressed  himself  very  pleasantly  towards  all 
of  us,  his  fellow-boarders,  and  spoke  of  the 
kindness  and  consideration  with  which  the 
Landlady  had  treated  him  when  he  had  been 


492  THE  POET  AT 

straitened  at  times  for  want  of  means.  Es 
pecially  he  seemed  to  be  interested  in  our 
young  couple  who  were  soon  to  be  united. 
His  tired  old  eyes  glistened  as  he  asked 
about  them,  —  could  it  be  that  their  little 
romance  recalled  some  early  vision  of  his 
own?  However  that  may  be,  he  got  up 
presently  and  went  to  a  little  box  in  which, 
as  he  said,  he  kept  some  choice  specimens. 
He  brought  to  me  in  his  hand  something 
which  glittered.  It  was  an  exquisite  dia 
mond  beetle. 

—  If  you  could  get  that  to  her,  —  he  said, 
—  they  tell  me  that  ladies  sometimes  wear 
them  in  their  hair.     If  they  are  out  of  fash 
ion,  she  can  keep  it  till  after  they  're  mar 
ried,  and  then  perhaps  after  a  while  there 
may  be  —  you    know  —  you    know    what  I 
mean  —  there  may  be  —  larvce,  that 's  what 
I  'm  thinking  there  may  be,  and  they  '11  like 
to  look  at  it. 

—  As  he  got  out  the  word  larvae,  a  faint 
sense  of  the  ridiculous  seemed  to  take  hold 
of  the  Scarabee,  and  for  the  first  and  only 
time  during   my  acquaintance   with   him  a 
slight  attempt  at  a  smile  showed  itself  on 
his  features.     It  was  barely  perceptible  and 
gone  almost  as  soon  as  seen,  yet  I  am  pleased 
to  put  it  on  record  that  on  one  occasion  at 
least  in  his  life  the  Scarabee  smiled. 


THE  BREAKFAST- TABLE.  493 

The  old  Master  keeps  adding  notes  and 
reflections  and  new  suggestions  to  his  inter 
leaved  volume,  but  I  doubt  if  he  ever  gives 
them  to  the  public.  The  study  he  has  pro 
posed  to  himself  does  not  grow  easier  the 
longer  it  is  pursued.  The  whole  Order  of 
Things  can  hardly  be  completely  unravelled 
in  any  single  person's  lifetime,  and  I  suspect 
he  will  have  to  adjourn  the  final  stage  of  his 
investigations  to  that  more  luminous  realm 
where  the  Landlady  hopes  to  rejoin  the  com 
pany  of  boarders  who  are  nevermore  to  meet 
around  her  cheerful  and  well-ordered  table. 

The  curtain  has  now  fallen,  and  I  show 
myself  a  moment  before  it  to  thank  my  au 
dience  and  say  farewell.  The  second  comer 
is  commonly  less  welcome  than  the  first,  and 
the  third  makes  but  a  rash  venture.  I  hope 
I  have  not  wholly  disappointed  those  who 
have  been  so  kind  to  my  predecessors. 

To  you,  Beloved,  who  have  never  failed  to 
cut  the  leaves  which  hold  my  record,  who 
have  never  nodded  over  its  pages,  who  have 
never  hesitated  in  your  allegiance,  who  have 
greeted  me  with  unfailing  smiles  and  part 
from  me  with  unfeigned  regrets,  to  you  I 
look  my  last  adieu  as  I  bow  myself  out  of 
sight,  trusting  my  poor  efforts  to  your  always 
kind  remembrance, 


494  THE  POET  AT 


EPILOGUE    TO    THE    BREAKFAST -TABLE 
SERIES  : 

AUTOCRAT  —  PROFESSOR  —  POET. 
AT    A    BOOKSTORE. 

Anno  Domini  1972. 

A  crazy  bookcase,  placed  before 
A  low-price  dealer's  open  door ; 
Therein  arrayed  in  broken  rows 
A  ragged  crew  of  rhyme  and  prose, 
The  homeless  vagrants,  waifs  and  strays 
Whose  low  estate  this  line  betrays 
(Set  forth  the  lesser  birds  to  lime) 

YOUR    CHOICE  AMONG    THESE  BOOKS,  1   DIME! 

Ho !  dealer ;  for  its  motto's  sake 

This  scarecrow  from  the  shelf  I  take  ; 

Three  starveling  volumes  bound  in  one, 

Its  covers  warping  in  the  sun. 

Methinks  it  hath  a  musty  smell, 

I  like  its  flavor  none  too  well, 

But  Yorick's  brain  was  far  from  dull. 

Though  Hamlet  pah !  'd,  and  dropped  his  skull. 

Why,  here  comes  rain  !     The  sky  grows  dark,  — 
Was  that  the  roll  of  thunder  ?     Hark  ! 
The  shop  affords  a  safe  retreat, 
A  chair  extends  its  welcome  seat, 
The  tradesman  has  a  civil  look 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  495 

I've  paid,  impromptu,  for  my  book), 
The  clouds  portend  a  sudden  shower,  — 
I  '11  read  my  purchase  for  an  hour. 


What  have  I  rescued  from  the  shelf  ? 

A  Boswell,  writing  out  himself  ! 

For  though  he  changes  dress  and  name, 

The  man  beneath  is  still  the  same, 

Laughing  or  sad,  by  fits  and  starts, 

One  actor  in  a  dozen  parts, 

And  whatsoe'er  the  mask  may  be, 

The  voice  assures  us,  This  is  he. 

I  say  not  this  to  cry  him  down  ; 
I  find  my  Shakespeare  in  his  clown, 
His  rogues  the  self -same  parent  own ; 
Nay  !  Satan  talks  in  Milton's  tone  ! 
Where'er  the  ocean  inlet  strays, 
The  salt  sea  wave  its  source  betrays, 
Where'er  the  queen  of  summer  blows, 
She  tells  the  zephyr,  "  I  'm  the  rose  !  " 

And  his  is  not  the  playwright's  page  ; 
His  table  does  not  ape  the  stage ; 
What  matter  if  the  figures  seen 
Are  only  shadows  on  a  screen, 
He  finds  in  them  his  lurking  thought, 
And  on  their  lips  the  words  he  sought, 
Like  one  who  sits  before  the  keys 
And  plays  a  tune  himself  to  please. 


496  THE  POET  AT 

And  was  he  noted  in  his  day  ? 

Read,  flattered,  honored  ?     Who  shall  say  ? 

Poor  wreck  of  time  the  wave  has  cast 

To  find  a  peaceful  shore  at  last, 

Once  glorying  in  thy  gilded  name 

And  freighted  deep  with  hopes  of  fame, 

Thy  leaf  is  moistened  with  a  tear, 

The  first  for  many  a  long,  long  year ! 

For  be  it  more  or  less  of  art 

That  veils  the  lowliest  human  heart 

Where  passion  throbs,  where  friendship  glows, 

Where  pity's  tender  tribute  flows, 

Where  love  has  lit  its  fragrant  fire, 

And  sorrow  quenched  its  vain  desire, 

For  me  the  altar  is  divine, 

Its  flame,  its  ashes,  —  all  are  mine  ! 

And  thou,  my  brother,  as  I  look 
And  see  thee  pictured  in  thy  book, 
Thy  years  on  every  page  confessed 
In  shadows  lengthening  from  the  west, 
Thy  glance  that  wanders,  as  it  sought 
Some  freshly  opening  flower  of  thought, 
Thy  hopeful  nature,  light  and  free, 
I  start  to  find  myself  in  thee  ! 


Come,  vagrant,  outcast,  wretch  forlorn 
In  leather  jerkin  stained  and  torn, 
Whose  talk  has  filled  my  idle  hour 


THE  BREAKFAST-TABLE.  497 

And  made  me  half  forget  the  shower, 
I  '11  do  at  least  as  much  for  you, 
Your  coat  I  '11  patch,  your  gilt  renew, 
Read  you,  —  perhaps,  —  some  other  time. 
Not  bad,  my  bargain  !     Price  one  dime ! 


INDEX. 


Act  to  make  the  poor  richer  by 
making  the  rich  poorer,  3. 

Actors  change  less  than  other 
people,  465. 

"Addison's  Disease,1'  an  inter 
esting  malady,  95  et  seg. 

Affinities,  elective,  183,  184. 

Alchemy,  old  books  of,  38. 

"Amatoors,"'  the  Scarabee  has 
no  fear  of,  355. 

Americans,  all  cuckoos, — make 
their  homes  in  other  birds' 
nests,  14. 

Angelina's  verses,  how  to  treat, 
216. 

Ankle,  wonderful  effects  of 
breaking  a  bone  in  the,  138. 

Articulated  sounds,  fascination 
of,  66. 

Aunt  Tabitha  (poem),  124. 

Authors,  compliments  to,  295. 

Baby's  fingers,  72. 

Bambino,  the,  in  the  little  church, 

437. 
Batrachlan  reservoir  (frog-pond 

in  vulgar  speech),  the  palladi 
um  of  our  city,  445. 
Beehive,   the  giant  (a  planing- 

inill),  460. 
Biography,  penalties  of  being  its 

subject,  231  et  seg. 
Bo;irding-house  keepers,  trials  of, 

481  et  seq. 
Boarding-houses,  the  tenants  of, 

347. 
Body,    animal,    anticipates    our 

contrivances,  455. 
Book-advertisement,  trap  to  ob- 

t  tin,  427. 
Book,  the  Master  speaks  about 

his,  292 ;  the  Master's,  313 ;  lie 

reads  from  it,  S14,  429. 
Books,  old,  in  the  attic  of  the  old 

house,  37  ;  three  old,  taken  for 

their  covers,  304 ;  what  is  the 

use  of  making,  307  j  sent  by 


their  authors,  —  what  is  done 

with    them,    427;    like    leaky 

boats  on  a  sea  of  wisdom,  429. 
Bouquet,  the  Christmas,  79. 
Bronzed  skin,  cutis  cenea.  96  et 

ser/. ;  166. 
Boy,  That,   checks  the  flow   of 

conversation,  89. 
"Boys,  The,"  161. 
Bumblebee,  the  sybarite  that 

lives  on,  109. 
Bunker  Hill  Monument,  211 ;  the 

man  of,  213,  23  . ;  questions  to 

ask  him,  236  et  s*q. 
Bunyan,  John,   says    Christians 

are  never  easy,  430. 

Calyin,  Mr.  Bancroft  on,  262. 

Canute,  King,  263,  379,  380. 

Capitalist,  the,  57,  185,  186,  195, 
214,  3>7,  359,  364  ;  rids  himself 
of  an  encumbrance,  490. 

Catullus,  his  story  of  the  Roman 
cockney  who  said  hinsiclias  for 
insidias,  458 

Changes  during  a  single  genera 
tion,  465. 

Character,  sudden  changes  of, 
434. 

Children,  truth-tellers,  72. 

"Cirri  and  Nebula-,,'1  2u3. 

City  house,  a  sanatorium,  396. 

Clergymen,  sad  faced,  24. 

Cockney,  the  Roman,  who  mis 
used  the  letter  A.  458. 

Coincidences  of  thought  and  ex 
pression,  457. 

"Common,  the,'' 444;  a  danger 
ous  path  in,  446. 

Co. union  virtues  of  humanity  not 
to  be  confiscated  to  the  use  of 
any  one  creed,  434. 

Complementary  colors,  198. 

Conversation,  an  astronomical 
and  sentimental,  447  et  seq. 

"Conversationists,"'  63. 

Coram,  Captain,  242. 


500 


INDEX. 


Correspondent,     my    interesting 

one,  225. 
Cowper,   his   mental    neuralgia, 

144. 

Creator,  his  divinest  work,  149. 
Criticism,  stinging,  216;  private 

aud  confidential,  220.  ' 

Dancing -master,  the,  and  his 
daughters,  136. 

Darwinian  Theory,  the,  258. 

'"  Darwinism,"  source  of  interest 
in,  431. 

Democritus  and  Heraclitus,  their 
different  views  of  a  certain 
source  of  happiness,  387. 

Dermestts  lardartus,  131. 

Devout  disposition  and  weak  con 
stitution  often  go  together,  ac 
cording  to  Mr.  Galtou,  4.30. 

Doctors,  young,  174. 

Double  star,  the,  104,  197,  199, 
449,  450,  49 ). 

Dynasty,  the  talking,  372  ;  hard 
on  Americans,  376. 

Egg,  the  Creator's  private  stu 
dio,  150. 

"Elm,  the  Great,"  444. 

Epilogue  to  the  Breakfast-Table 
Series,  494. 

Epizoic  literature,  217. 

Equation,  an  eye  for  an,  148. 

Everett,  Edward,  40. 

Experience,  quintessence  of  the 
old  Master's,  477. 

Experiment,  the  Master's,  247  et 
leg. 

Fact,  the  one  central  in  the  Order 

of  Things,  479,  485. 
Fantasia  (poem),  87. 
Fisk,  Rev.  Thaddeus,  of  West 

Cambridge,  21. 
Forgotten,  pleasure  of  being,  228 

et  seq. 
Fossils,  make-believes,  according 

to  Mr.  Gos?e,  256. 
Foster,  Kev.  John,  20. 
Frenchman,  the  eccentric,  320. 

Gambrel-roofed  House,  the,  13  et 

seq. 

Gentlemen,  differences  in,  288. 
Ghosts,  do  not  believe  in  them, 

but  an;  afraid  of  them,  464. 
Goldenrod,  Mrs.  Midas,  79,  417  et 

sea. 
good    Samaritan,   the,   question 

concerning,  434. 


Hall,  Bishop,  on  the  election  of  a 

wife,  431. 

Harris,  Kev.  Thaddeus  Mason,  20. 
Hedrricus,  a  gentlemanly  quarto, 

Heritable  guilt,  the  doctrine  of, 
3SO. 

Holyoke,  President,  42. 

Homer,  a  ringing  line  of  his,  67. 

Homer,  Ilev.  Jonathan,  21. 

Homesick  in  heaven  (poem),  45. 

Horace  asks  a  modern  slang  ques 
tion,  458. 

House-flies  mysterious  creatures, 
348. 

Human  fruit,  the  best  raised  un 
der  glass,  393. 

Human  subspecies,  a  coarse- 
fibred  one,  389. 

Humanity  more  important  than 
any  one  belief,  463. 

Ideas  often  improve  by  trans 
plantation,  207. 

Instincts,  successive  ripening  of, 
235. 

Intellects,  one  story,  two  story, 
three  story,  61. 

"  Interviewing  ;'  one's  self,  1. 

"J.  A.''  (poem),  163. 

Japanese  image  for  acupuncture, 
172. 

Jeremy  Taylor's  discourse,  etc., 
272. 

Jests  distress  some  people,  350. 

"  Johnny  ;'  makes  his  appear 
ance  at  table,  398. 

Johnson,  Dr.,  his  estimate  of 
scientific  men,  373. 

Judas,  has  been  whitewashed 
lately,  292. 

Justice,  an  algebraic  x,  383. 

Keats,  John,  141. 
Kellogg,  Rev.  Elijah,  22. 

Laboring  classes  and  idle  people, 
424. 

Lady, the,  77,80, 121, 129, 193, 265, 
370,  385 ;  is  to  change  her  con 
dition,  411  et  seq. ;  425,  480, 488. 

Lamb  Tavern,  the  Member  in 
quires  about  the,  487. 

Landlady,  the,  53,  194,  198,  253, 
288,  35.,  399,  401,  410  et  seq.; 
422,  47i)  et  seq. 

Landlady's  daughter,  64. 

Landlady's  daughter's  children, 
55. 


INDEX. 


501 


langdon,  President,  40. 

Lawyers,  ministers,  and  doctors, 
174  et  seq. 

Letter,  the  Lady's,  266. 

Library,  the  Master's,  296  et  seq. 

Life  a  fatal  complaint,  and  con 
tagious,  476. 

Likes  and  dislikes,  philosophy 
of,  101. 

Limitations,  human,  not  to  be 
transferred  to  the  Infinite,  385. 

Literary  roughs,  their  brass 
knuckles,  489. 

London  club,  meeting  celebri 
ties  at,  146. 

Love-cure,  the,  386. 

"  Man  of  Letters,"  the,  so  called, 
74,  140,  188,  190,  202,  213  et 
seq. ;  becomes  a  public  bene 
factor,  288. 

Manhood,  Oriental  and  Occiden 
tal,  382. 

Master's  book,  the,  meaning  of, 
452. 

M'istizophori,  the,  388. 

"Matchless  Mitchel,"  and  the 
Zend  Avesta,  461,  462. 

Meloe,  larva  of,  105. 

Member  of  the  Haouse,  the,  1  et 
seq. ;  9,  131,  188,  190,  208,  214, 
386,  392,  487. 

Mental  ballast,  the  Master  says 
he  rises  higher  after  throwing 
it  over,  454. 

Mental  heiniplegia,  23. 

Millionnaires  cannot  be  extermi 
nated,  6. 

Milton,  curious  passage  from 
Paradise  Lost,  131. 

Minds  move  like  chess-mtn,  312. 

Misers,  my  study  of,  361  et  seq. 

"  Mmbongaparty,"  General,  22. 

Moon-hoax,  195. 

Moon,  photographs  of,  thought 
to  have  been  taken  from  a 
peeled  orange,  195;  has  been 
thought  to  act  as  a  mirror, 
showing  seas  and  shores  of  the 
earth,  195. 

Moral  averages,  314. 

"  Moral  Teratology,"  a  poten 
tial  essay,  319. 

Music,  the  old  Master's  fancies 
about,  88  ;  Florence  Nightin 
gale's  saying  about,  ibid. 

"  Natural  Man,"  the,  331. 
Nature,  study  of,  its  difficulties, 


"Nature,"  treated  as  a  distinct 
entity,  432;  view  of,  like  that 
once  taken  of  diseai-e,  ibid. 

Nebular  theory,  the,  255. 

New  York,  streets  made  by  cow- 
paths,  459. 

New-Yorkers,  two  old  ones  and 
their  talk  about  actors,  466. 

Nightingale,  Florence,  her  say 
ing  about  music,  88. 

Noblemen,  natural,  391. 

Non-clerical  minds,  hopeful  for 
the  future  of  the  race,  365. 

Observatory,  visit  to,  105,  183, 
186  :  description  of,  188. 

Old  Master,  the  (Magister  Arti- 
um),  58,  62,  87,  99  et  seq. ;  102, 
111  et  seq.,-  126,  136  et  seq.; 
143,  160,  169  et  seq. ;  207,  247 
et  seq. ;  2;12,  296  et  seq. ;  314  et 
seq. ;  326,  338  et  seq. ;  370,  42-J 
et  seq. ;  450  et  seq.;  479,  485  et 
seq.  ;  493. 

Old  People  almost  wish  to  lose 
their  blessings  for  the  pleas 
ure  of  remembering  them, 464. 

Old  People,  monsters  to  little 
ones,  20. 

Old  People,  we  \vant  to  ques 
tion  them  when  it  is  too  late, 
467. 

Order  of  Things,  the  old  Mas 
ter's  specialty,  59. 

Organ-blower  and  organ-player, 
424. 

Osgood,  Rev.  David,  20. 

Pearson,  Master  Edward,  25. 

Pearson,  Rev.  Eliphalet,  18. 

PedicuLus  melittex,  105. 

Persons  whom  the  old  Master 
dislikes,  471. 

Pharisee,  the,  and  the  Publican, 
475. 

Phrases,  pretty,  the  poet  loves 
them,  66. 

Places,  change  of,  at  the  table, 
333. 

Poem,  is  it  hard  work  to  write 
one  ?  135. 

Poem,  one  good  one  makes  a 
name  live,  159. 

Poet,  like  the  traveller  at  a  rail 
way-station,  153. 

Poet,  the,  consults  Dr.  Benja 
min,  90. 

Poet,  the,  finds  himself  wonder 
fully  like  other  people,  15. 

Poet,  the  Master  thinks  he  has 


502 


INDEX. 


some  of  his  elements,  but  is 
not  one,  154. 

Poetry,  a  young  man's  maiden 
effort,  222. 

Poets,  dark-meat  and  white-meat, 
62. 

Poets,  privileged  persons,  140  et 
seq.  ,-j  the  old  Master  dis 
courses  on,  143  ;  life  too  vivid 
to  them,  152. 

Poets  who  do  not  write  verses 
the  best  talkers,  134. 

Political  firebugs,  4. 

Pope,  his  lines  to  Addison  on 
medals,  158. 

Popgun,  the,  89,  133,  159,  213, 
334  et  seq. 

Poppies  growing  among  the  corn 
suggest  the  same  moral  reflec 
tion  to  two  writers,  460. 

Power,  we  have  no  respect  for  as 
such,  383. 

Prince,  Thomas,  his  history  of 
New  England,  172. 

Private  property  in  thought  hard 
to  get  and  to  keep,  429. 

Reader,  one  good  faithful,  50. 
Red  Republic  of  letters,  the,  14- 
lieitaiia,   so  called,   my   delight 

in,  388. 
Register  of  Deeds,  the,  85,  132, 

188,  214,  238  et  seq.;  409,  411 

e.t  seq. ;  490. 
Religion,  every,  presupposes  its 

own   elements   as   existing   in 

those  to  whom  it  is  addressed, 

260. 
Rhymes,  the  list  of  good  ones, 

short,  103. 
Ribbon   in   button-hole    pleases 

rhe  author,  389. 
Rigorists,  mellowing,  pleasanter 

than  tightening  liberals,  23. 
Rise-  of  man  instead  of  fall  of 

man,  259. 

Salesman,  the,  85,  131,  188,  214, 

290,  490. 
Sanitary    map    of    every    State 

wanted,  398. 
Scarabee,  the,  69,  71,  105  et  seq. ; 

131,  208,  338  et  seq.  ;  351  et  seq.  ; 

396,  491. 
Sceptic,   one    man    in    a    dozen 

ought  to  be,  292. 
School-Ma'am,     the,     a    former 

boarder,  402,  423. 
"Science'*     good     if    common- 
sense  goes  with  it,  170  et  seq. 


Scientific    study   of    man    most 

difficult  branch  of  knowledge, 

435. 
Self-depreciation     not    without 

pleasure,  345. 

Sentiment,    poets    given    to   in 
dulging  in,  191. 
"  Sentimentality  *'    better    than 

cynicism,  192. 
Shakespeare,   \Villiam,  domestic 

trial  of,  12. 

Shenstone's  famous  epitaph  (al 
tered),  464. 
Shirley,  James.  156. 
Side-shows,     niy     acquaintance 

with,  324. 
Sin,  like  diseise,  a  vital  process, 

433. 

Singer,  triumphs  of  the,  160. 
Slacked  lime,  image  for  a  delicate 

complexion,  459. 
Smith,  Rev.  Isaac,  22 
Social  distinctions,  people  touchy 

about,  81. 
Sparrows,  English,  missionaries 

of  ablution,  445. 

Specialists  like  coral  insects,  111. 
Spider,  the  Scarabee's,  346  et  seq. 
Spiritual  pathology  as  a  branch 

of  study,  43(>. 
"Squirt,"  a  college  boy's  term, 

357. 

Stearns,  Rev.  Charles,  20. 
Stereoscope     shows    objects    as 

large  as  the  reality,  312. 
Story-telling    and    shirt-sewing, 

423. 

Struldbrugs,  396. 
Students,  names  of  three  on  the 

window-pane  of  the  Old  House, 

35. 
Study,  a  scholar's,  like  a  caddice- 

worm's  shell,  299. 

Table,  our,  diagram  of  its  arrange 
ment,  86. 

Talk  about  talking,  126. 

Talkers,  poets  who  never  write 
verses  the  best,  134. 

Talkers,  three  famous,  372. 

Talking  to  find  out  one's  self,  3. 

Tattooing  with  the  belief  of  our 
tribe  while  we  are  in  our  cra 
dles,  463. 

Telescope,  Herschel's  great,  311. 

Teratology,  the  science  of  ''  mon 
strosities,"  316  et  s*q. 

That  Boy,  10,  89,  101,  104,  115, 
116,  130,  133,  159,  193,  208,  290, 
386,  491. 


INDEX 


503 


Theology,  must  be  studied 
through  anthropology,  2oO. 

Thief,  the  little  crippled  one  in 
Newgate,  322. 

Things  the  writer  would  like  to 
live  long  enough  to  see,  4(59. 

Thinking-cell,  my  model  for,  150. 

Thoughts  that  breed  in  the  dark, 
like  the  fishes  in  the  Mammoth 
Cave,  2. 

Tinder-box,  the  old  tin,  64. 

Tourgueneff,  147. 

Traditionists  eliminate  cause  and 
effect  from  the  domain  of  mor 
als,  321. 

Trilobite,  as  an  emotional  ano 
dyne,  454. 

Two  sides  to  consciousness,  322. 

University  town,  its  soil,  clay  and 
sand,  28 ;  its  four  curses,  ibid. 

Vernon,  Fortescue,  41. 

Warren,  General,  40. 

Washington  Elm,  and  other  elms, 
28. 

Water,  looking  at,  a  substitute 
for  speech  and  thought,  447. 

"  Week  in  a  French  country- 
house,"  229. 

Whips,  the  delight  of  rural 
youth,  387. 


Wife,  choice  of,  nature  preferred 
to  grace  by  Uishop  Hall,  431. 

Williams,  Colonel  Elisha,  a  most 
iiotablti  man,  468. 

Wind-clouds  and  Star-drifts  (po 
em),  204,  243,  279,  327,  365, 
403,  439. 

YVinets  old  .Madeira,  145. 

Women  have  more  spiritual  life 
than  men,  2  4. 

Women  prefer  men  to  angels,  129  ; 
womanly  ones  kindly  critics, 
132. 

Worcester's  Dictionary,  4,  11. 

Writer,  a,  like  a  lover,  50. 

Yankees,  pitch-pine  and  white- 
pine,  391. 

Young  Astronomer,  the,  83,  104, 
14^,  194,  199,  227,  28(5,  287,  332, 
333  e t  seq. ;  438, 444, 447  et  seq.  ; 
480,  488  et  seq. 

Young  Doctor,  the  (B.  Franklin), 
54,  90  et  seq. ;  165, 188,  359. 

Young  Girl,  the,  "  Our  Schehere- 
zade,"  74,  105,  118  et  xeq. ;  129, 
182,  186,  196,  208,  332,  334,  370, 
386,  421,  443,  446  ft  seq. ;  488. 

Young  men,  lonely,  pitied  by 
young  girls,  199. 

Zend  Avesta,  the,  and  "Match 
less  Mitchel,"  461,  462. 


14  DAY  USE 

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